


Honeybee

by marythefan (marylex)



Category: Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Popslash
Genre: Canon Queer Character, Coming Out, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-03
Updated: 2008-12-03
Packaged: 2017-10-06 18:14:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 44,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marylex/pseuds/marythefan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scenes from a <strike>kitchen</strike> ... <strike>delayed adolescence</strike> ... relationship.</p><p>Written for Bittybang, the Popslash Big Bang.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honeybee

_You taste like honey, honey  
Tell me I can be your honey ...  
Bee ..._  
Lance takes the time to pull on some pajama pants before he wanders down to the kitchen, drawn by the low beacon of light over the stove. Nick's there, in boxer briefs and that T-shirt, the T-shirt that was Lance's downfall tonight, a white T-shirt tight enough to make Nick's shoulders look impossibly broad in the half-light of VIP at the club. A little shiver of pleasure runs through Lance as he remembers the solid weight of Nick over him, blanketing him, holding him down. He's not sure how Nick has the stamina to come scavenging for a post-sex snack - although if it fuels some extra energy, Lance can think of a good way to burn it up.

Again.

The thought brings a sly smile to Lance's lips, and Nick catches it as he turns around, ducking his head bashfully and grinning back before he returns to his search of Lance's pantry shelves. He pulls out a box of pudding and squints at it in the mellow light.

"Instant. Score," he says in a whisper. "Even if it is the lite kind."

"I have to watch my girlish figure," Lance says, voice still gravelly, and he stretches, feeling the pull of muscles and the not-quite ache low in his body, deliciously well-used.

If he has to turn 30, at least this has turned out to be a most excellent birthday present to himself.

He stretches again when he notices Nick watching him appreciatively. He came out here shirtless on purpose, because he was pretty sure how Nick would react. Nick's ridiculously easy, and the expected response makes it worth the chilly air against Lance's skin.

"There's nothing girlish about that figure, man," Nick says. "At least, not anymore. Hey, you got something we can mix this with, like a fork, or something?"

"Um. A whisk. Maybe." Lance pulls open one of the drawers like he has any idea which of them holds what utensil, wincing at the clatter as he tries to rummage quietly, until the thought hits him. "Well, why not the mixer?"

"Because it's, like, two in the morning ..." Nick trails off.

"And there's nobody to wake up. Which probably means we can stop whisperin', too." Lance can't help laughing.

"Too many years on a bus with too many other people," Nick says, and his voice seems loud now, although it's only because he's at normal volume.

They're grinning at each other like idiots. Endorphins, Lance decides. Must be the endorphins.

"We could maybe turn on a real light," he says, moving to flip the switch, leaving them both squinting in the glare.

"I thought you had ... roommates," Nick says, pause barely perceptible before the word.

"No."

Lance knows a lot of people think he's stupid, but not a whole lot more stuff had to go missing before it was obvious someone was stealing from him, and that took care of Jimmy. And then Carrah moved in with her boyfriend, and Beth got her own place, and things just got too intense, people paid too much attention for Lance to be able to maintain anything with ... No, he still doesn't want to think about Jesse. And then, when it was too late, he didn't need the cover of roommates anymore.

Nick seems to have meant "harem" when he said "roommates," though, and what does he think, that Lance has some boy he's going to send off to a guest room while Nick's here?

"I thought you guys all had your own buses, anyway," Lance says.

"Not anymore. And even when we did, that doesn't mean I was always alone on it."

Nick flicks a sharp look over at Lance before he drops his gaze and studies the box of pudding mix he's been turning over in his hands. Lance can tell he's said something wrong, but he's not sure what. It's not like he meant to make it sound like Nick was a loser, or something.

"Big man with the lay-dees," he says, tone teasing as he leans against the counter, hoping to redirect Nick's thoughts. "Or maybe with the boys?"

Nick smiles hesitantly at him, looking up through the bangs that flop over his eyes, and asks about milk, and Lance suddenly realizes that Nick's probably not thinking about groupies. He's not thinking about the girls or the boys - he's thinking about the Boys. Maybe he's still - still - thinking about Howie, and that's not what Lance wants to think about. It's not what he wants Nick to think about, not when Lance is standing here half-dressed, thinking about how he wants to drape himself all over Nick, push up that T-shirt and rub against warm skin. Thinking about Nick's ex - who can only ever be a not-quite-ex in that incestuous pop group way, not like someone in real life who you can actually leave or who can leave you when they marry someone else - that just ruins the vibe.

He slams the refrigerator door a little too firmly on the thought and turns to offer the carton to Nick, who looks a little disconcerted at Lance's sudden violence against harmless kitchen appliances. He's been trying to assemble the mixer and finally holds it - warily - out to Lance.

"Here," he says. "I'm only gonna end up breaking it."

Lance puts the correct beater in the correct hole while Nick dumps the dry pudding into a bowl, leaving a dusting of sweet powder on the counter around it, and estimates the milk. Lance's reward when he turns the appliance back over to Nick is a kiss that gets a little out of hand - or maybe in hand - once Nick blindly sets down the mixer with a little thunk on the counter. Lance can practically feel the ridges of Nick's fingertips through the thin pajama pants as Nick squeezes his ass, and he pushes his hips into Nick's, opening his mouth for Nick's tongue. He slides his hands up under the T-shirt to touch the bare skin of Nick's back as he pulls away just far enough to say "Pudding," against Nick's lips.

"Oh, yeah," Nick says and backs off. "Shit."

The instant pudding is already congealing in clumps in the milk.

"Dude, that was not the response I was looking for." Lance winds his fingers into the front of Nick's T-shirt. "You were supposed to say 'Screw the pudding.' Or something like that."

"I'd rather eat the pudding," Nick says, absently, twining his fingers through Lance's as he turns. "And then screw you. Again. Do you think this will still mix OK?"

"I dunno."

Lance tugs his hand away from where Nick's got it trapped against his chest, unsure whether to be mollified or not. He's still too relaxed and good-humored from their previous activities to work up much indignation at coming in second to pudding. The whir of the mixer would drown out any response, anyway. Plus, Nick did say "again," and Lance isn't about to turn down an encore, whenever it's being offered.

"It looks OK," Nick says, poking his fingers in the bowl as he finishes mixing. "I mean, if it was some kind of store brand, maybe we couldn't have saved it ... but you did spring for the Jell-O kind, so I think it'll be all right."

"Of course I sprung for the Jell-O kind - who do you think I am, JC?" Lance asks. "And besides, you have to have Jell-O pudding."

"Is that what your mom always bought?" Nick hands Lance one of the beaters.

"I ... what?" Lance is briefly distracted by the pink flicker of Nick's tongue as he swipes it along the other beater. "Well, yeah. But also because Bill Cosby says so."

Nick laughs and ducks his head again, wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist.

"Do not laugh at Bill Cosby," Lance says imperiously, gesturing with his beater and flinging a drop of pudding on the counter. He wipes it up with a finger that he sucks clean, pretending he doesn't know Nick is watching the movement of his lips and tongue. "Bill Cosby has some serious comedy skills."

"You watched the show when you were little."

"We used to listen to him on the bus. Like, his standup routines and stuff. Chris had them all on vinyl, too. He used to make us watch reruns of the show if they were on one of the channels we got on a hotel night."

"I'm not sure Dr. Huxtable would approve of what I want to do with this pudding," Nick says, sticking a finger in the bowl. He sucks it clean slowly, watching Lance watch him.

"Are you kidding me?" Lance scoffs. "Cockroach? He was a total twink. He and Theo were so doing it."

Nick grins at him.

 

•••

 

Nick's over for movie night the next time they have sex, which is hardly unexpected, as Nick's the only one over for movie night, and "movie night" really means "booty call" anyway, and they both know it. They've already gone one round - Nick showing up after a day cut short in the studio, frustrated and sharp and ready to fuck Lance through the mattress to work off some of his pent-up energy; Lance perfectly willing to oblige - when Nick wants to know what movie they're going to watch.

"Uh?" Lance says, into one of his pillows.

He hadn't thought that far, certainly hadn't thought much further than getting Nick back in his bed and making a thorough mess of the sheets while he rode Nick's cock and clenched his fingers in the shaggy blond hair spread out across his 800-count Egyptian cotton pillow cases.

"Movie?" Nick says, looking over at Lance from where he's propped up on his elbows on the other side of the bed.

He kicks gently at Lance's shin, the bump cushioned by the sheets tangled around both their legs, and Lance swipes an indolent hand at him, rolling over to stare at the ceiling in the crimson light of a rapidly setting sun, trying to get all of his limbs in working order so he can sit up.

"Really?" he says, finally, rolling his head on the pillow to look at Nick, who's staring into space, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth in a way that almost makes Lance want to bite it.

Almost. He'd have to be willing to move that far, though.

"What?" Nick says, starting to attention.

"Movie? Really?

"I was promised a movie, Bass."

Nick kicks at Lance again, and Lance kicks lazily back this time before sitting up in bed, sheets pooling around his waist. The comforter seems to have gotten shoved onto the floor, at some point. So has the TV remote, he discovers, as he leans over to the nightstand - probably when Nick was rummaging in the drawer for lube and a condom. It's not terribly surprising, really. What shocks Lance about the whole thing is that they made it upstairs at all, once the front door was closed and Nick grabbed him and pushed him up against it.

He thinks the shirt he was wearing is somewhere over the railing on the first floor. He's pretty sure his pants are in the doorway to the bedroom. Nick got him naked awfully fast and spread him out on the bed like that before leaving him to watch while Nick finished pulling off his own T-shirt to reveal that sculpted stomach he's got now. Nick let Lance watch and stroke himself, slow and hard, thumb sticky at the head of his cock, while Nick tugged open the button on his jeans. And that's about as far as Nick's patience lasted before he gave up and crawled up the bed, jeans loose and riding low on his hips as he knocked Lance's hands out of the way, wrapped his own fingers around the base of Lance's cock, put his head down and just ... went _down_. Lance hopes Nick's not supposed to be laying down vocals tomorrow, because that can't have been good for his throat, however great it was for Lance.

It was great enough that Lance remembers some name-calling on his part when Nick pulled off, mouthing his way up Lance's stomach to his chest, pausing to lick at one nipple and bite the other, and Lance thinks he might have felt Nick grin against his skin when Lance called him a fucking bastard on a higher note than he ever really thought he could reach. He's not sure though, because that's when he reached down to jerk himself again, and Nick grabbed his wrist, hard, waiting until Lance looked down and met his gaze to shake his head warningly, a look in his eye that Lance never expected from a big puppy like Nick. There are few things Lance loves more than a challenge, and he supposes that's how Nick ended up rummaging in the nightstand for a condom with one hand while he held Lance's hands trapped on the bed above his head with the other - cursing, himself, when Lance wrapped a leg around his waist and swiveled his hips up, pressing their cocks together through Nick's jeans, managing to twist just ... right .... and that's when Lance thinks maybe he heard the clatter.

At least it wasn't the lamp, he thinks and tilts off the bed trying to reach the remote, flailing before Nick grabs his wrist and hauls him back up, earning himself an elbow in the eye in the process.

"Ow."

Nick sounds kind of plaintive, and Lance wraps an arm around his neck.

"Hey," he says in response, feeling Nick's fingers press into his hip as Nick snakes an arm around his waist. "Are you sure about that movie thing? I mean, I'm just askin' ..."

"Why? You have a better idea?" Nick's fingers flex.

"Maybe," Lance says, swinging a leg over and settling on top of Nick, who leans back against the headboard, hands hovering in the air a minute before he rests them on Lance's hips, thumbs smoothing up and down Lance's sides in light brushes that make him shiver.

"So, that was ... OK, right?"

Lance blinks and sits back on his heels, at a loss for words.

Seriously? he thinks. Nick's that insecure, that he'll ask something like that after leaving Lance fuck-stupid? What does he want? A gold star stuck on his forehead?

Nick must be worried about his lack of response, because he ducks his head and wraps his fingers around one of Lance's wrists, stroking his thumb over soft flesh where he was holding Lance down not half an hour ago.

"Sorry if it was too much," he says, not meeting Lance's eyes. "I just ... I forget sometimes. A lot of people want me to be more careful."

"Dude, I don't know what's wrong with the other people you've slept with, but you can show up on my doorstep and do that any time you want," Lance says fervently.

Nick looks up at him from under messy bangs, and Lance nods, raising his eyebrows. Nick laughs and leans in; Lance thinks he's getting a kiss, but instead, Nick bites at his chin. Lance pushes a hand back through Nick's hair, twisting his fingers in the silky mass to hold him still while he slides his mouth over Nick's, kneeling up to press into him.

"I think you might have to feed me, first," Nick says against his mouth. "Get my stamina back up."

"Lack of stamina is a sign of getting old," Lance tells him, sitting back again. "Are we gonna have to start calling you guys the Backstreet Grandpas? We can see if Joey's dad wants to join another old man band."

"Show you old ..." Nick says, grabbing at the back of Lance's knee and tugging, and Lance finds himself on his back again, head at the foot of the bed.

He raises his knees to cradle Nick's body as Nick crawls up him, kissing along the length of his thigh, flicking a quick lick at the top, pausing to gnaw a little bit on Lance's hipbone. Lance squirms - he can feel his cock stirring again, and he's rapidly deciding he's not joking about a second round, anymore. He's got his hands draped over Nick's shoulders, scratching soft between his shoulder blades, and he's nudging his hips up as much as he can with Nick holding him down, when Nick suddenly blows a raspberry on his stomach. He can't help cracking up, and he tugs on Nick's hair. Nick looks up at him, grinning.

"Popcorn, too?" he asks.

He drapes himself over Lance's back like a big warm cuddly octopus while Lance rummages in the pantry downstairs to find some microwave popcorn.

"Wait," he says, as Lance pulls out a package. "What's that?"

He reaches past Lance to snag the jar of actual loose popcorn kernels that Joey left the last time he was here.

"Popcorn?" Lance says.

"Real popcorn."

"OK. Real popcorn?"

"Dawg, we should totally make some real popcorn."

"O ... K?"

"You have a popcorn maker, right?" Nick shakes the jar, rattling the kernels.

"Somewhere?"

Lance manages to unearth the popcorn maker in the very back of the lower cabinet beside the stove. He pulls it out, and they both stand there and look at it for a minute.

"You have used it, right?" Nick asks, looking over at Lance and back to the jumble of plastic pieces.

"Yes," Lance says, feeling a little defensive. "Of course. Kind of. It's been used. Joey used it. I usually just settle for microwave popcorn, like normal people."

"Hey!"

"Well, do you know how to use it?"

"Um. No. We always just used Jiffy Pop." Nick sets the jar of popcorn on the counter and approaches the popcorn maker warily, like it might bite. When it doesn't make any sudden moves, he pokes at it. "I'd bet it needs a power cord, though."

"Don't stick your fingers in there," Lance says, smacking at his hand. "Hold on."

"That's not what you said earlier," Nick says, smirking at him, and Lance rolls his eyes.

He digs around in the cabinet some more, unearthing the lid for a saucepan he threw out three months ago because he thought the lid was lost forever, a package of paper muffin cups, some plastic martini swords and a cord that looks like it belongs with the popcorn popper.

"OK," he says, when one end fits into the popper, and then, "Oh, shit, what?"

He jumps, startled, as he plugs the other end into the outlet and the arm on the popper starts rotating. Nick, from his supervisory position leaning against the sink, starts giggling.

"Dude, did you just get freaked out by your own popcorn maker?"

"Shut up." Lance says. "Or no popcorn for you."

He examines the popper, which doesn't appear to have an actual on/off switch. Nick's already back in the pantry, trying to find some oil.

"Shouldn't we use olive oil?" Lance says, when he emerges with a bottle of vegetable oil.

"What? No."

"Yeah, no, it makes the popcorn better," Lance says, lounging on the kitchen's central island. "There was this movie theater that showed old movies that Joey and I used to go to near Orlando, and it had this, like, legendary popcorn. It was so good because they popped it in olive oil."

"You mean the Enzian, out in Maitland?" Nick looks up from where he's rummaging in a drawer. "I thought that was because they used real butter on it."

"Huh." Lance thinks for a minute, trying to remember what the old guy at the concession stand told him. "Maybe."

"Do _you_ have real butter?"

"No," Lance says, making a face. "There's margarine. Real butter tastes weird. Like licking a cow. Stop laughing. Hey, how much of that are you putting in there, anyway?"

"How much am I supposed to put in?" Nick asks, pausing with the bottle of oil tilted over a measuring cup.

"How should I know? I've ... got the directions somewhere?"

"You keep the directions?"

"What? Of course I keep the directions." Lance knows they're somewhere in this drawer, along with the rest of the manuals and the warranties and all the other crap he never looks at ... wait. Is that the warranty on the vacuum cleaner?

He doesn't realize he said that last part out loud until Nick looks up at him.

"You don't have a cleaning service?" he asks, eyebrows raised.

"Well, yeah. But just in case," Lance says, pulling out a manual with a picture of the popcorn popper on it. "Hold on a minute, it's right here ... Wait. How much are we making?"

"The biggest batch?" Nick says, and Lance looks up at him skeptically. "Hey, I need a lot of energy if you want a repeat performance."

"Four quarts," Lance says immediately, inspecting the manual. He looks back up to see Nick smirking at him. "Don't start. I'm holding you to that, you know."

"So how much oil?" Nick says, whining a little bit.

"Not _that_ much," Lance says, kicking him in the foot. "Like, three tablespoons is all you need. Here, wait. Don't ... Leave that cup out to measure the popcorn. Give it here."

"So, Mr. Cleaning Service," Nick says, "how much popcorn?"

"A cup and a half?" Lance says, squinting at the manual again. "No, hold on. Three-quarters of a cup? And do you even _own_ a vacuum cleaner?"

"Hey! I own a vacuum cleaner."

"But have you ever used it?" Lance asks, handing Nick the plastic dome that goes on top of the popper. "Are you ready for me to plug this in?"

"Yes, I've used it. Have you ever tried to live with four younger sisters and a brother ... four younger ... _three_ sisters and a brother? Go for it."

They stand there for a minute and watch the arm turn, pushing the popcorn kernels through the oil.

"Do Chris and Joey count?" Lance finally asks. "I mean, they might be chronologically older than me, but mentally? I'm not so sure. Plus, they're big enough to count as at least two, each, right? And Joey's a big girl. Should it be popping?"

"Not yet? I mean, it has to heat up, right?" Nick leans over, elbows on the counter, chin in hand, practically pressing his nose against the plastic dome.

"Hey," Lance says, kicking at his foot again before stepping on his bare toes. "This was your idea, Carter. Amuse me while we're waiting."

"How would you like me to do that?" Nick says, standing up, one corner of his mouth quirking.

Lance tucks his fingers into the front of Nick's jeans and tugs him closer, rubbing his thumb along the trail of fine hair that runs down Nick's stomach. He can tell Nick's between albums, with no on-going promo, fuzzy in a way Lance never lets himself get.

"I can think of a couple of ways," he says.

"Somehow, that doesn't surprise me, considering you didn't even bother to put on pants."

"Hey, I put on pants." Lance pinches at Nick's stomach.

"_Sweat_ pants," Nick says, grabbing for Lance's hand. He catches it as Lance flails, twistsing it behind Lance's back, pressing their bodies together. "That hardly counts."

"Are you complaining?" Lance asks, tilting his head. "Because I can go get dressed ..."

Both of them jump at a sharp pop.

"It's working," Nick says, looking over at the popcorn maker and back at Lance, his words punctuated by a growing cascade of pops.

"We'll probably set something on _fire_," Lance says, pulling away to inspect the popcorn's progress.

"Aren't you the one who's always excited about pyro?" Nick says. "Are you getting excited?" He wiggles his eyebrows in a way that's probably supposed to be suggestive.

"You know it, baby," Lance says, low, rumbling, actually suggestive, and he slaps Nick's ass, making him jump.

"OK, I was rethinking the popcorn," Nick says, "but now, I don't know ..."

"OK, no, we're not not setting my kitchen on fire. What are we supposed to be doing with this thing?"

"Waiting for it to finish popping? I mean, it's like microwave popcorn that way - when it slows down, it's ready, right?"

They end up scorching some kernels on the bottom, which becomes the top when they turn the whole thing over, using the plastic dome as a bowl. Nick scrapes the brown pieces off into the trash while Lance puts the forgotten butter ... the forgotten _margarine_ in the microwave to melt it.

"Wait," Nick says as Lance pours the melted margarine over the mound of popcorn and tries to toss it without knocking it all on the floor. "It's kind of ... leaking? There's holes in the bottom? What?"

He's getting melted butter ... melted _margarine_ all over his fingers as he picks up the container and shifts it from hand to hand.

"Oh. Wait. Is that what this is for?" Lance picks up the plastic lid that looked so out of place when they first set up the popper. "_Oh_. This, like, snaps on there to cover the steam holes ...."

"Hey, a little help here?" Nick says.

"Sorry," Lance says, laughing.

His fingers slide slippery over Nick's as they both try to snap on the lid without upending the popcorn. They lose a few stray pieces anyway, and Dingo wanders over to investigate, licking up a piece and spitting it back out, smacking her lips against the texture before she pads out of the kitchen. Lance drops the lid on the floor once, but he just picks it up and blows on it, looking at Nick.

"Five-second rule," Nick says, shrugging, and Lance finally snaps it into place.

"That was harder than it should have been," he says and looks over to see Nick licking butter off his fingers.

"S'good," Nick says, raising an eyebrow.

Lance inspects his own fingers, then licks at them before he looks up to see Nick _sucking_ on a finger, and oh, that's how this is going to go, is it? Nick's finger makes a popping sound as he pulls it out of his mouth, smirking. Lance reaches out to trace a fingertip along his mouth, tugs at his lower lip with a thumb before leaning up and kissing him.

Lance doesn't allow himself a lot of butter and salt on his usual diet regime, so he's not entirely sure he's not licking at Nick's lips to get that taste back from him - partially, at least - but it tastes and feels too good to really care. When Nick pulls away, Lance darts back in to catch his mouth again, but Nick holds him off with a hand on his jaw. Instead, he pulls Lance's hand to his mouth again, tongue flickering out to lick the butter off of Lance's fingers, teeth nipping at his fingertips, and OK. Thinking's overrated, anyway, Lance decides.

When he looks up, Nick's watching him, blue eyes locked on his face, and Lance feels his chest get tight and airless, feels his breathing quicken. He drops his gaze back to Nick's mouth and slides two fingers in, then out, slow, watching them slick over Nick's glistening lips, thinking about the way his dick looked, sliding in and out of that pink mouth, and he's so hard he aches now, shifts from foot to foot with it. Nick's closed his eyes, and there's a little furrow between his eyebrows, like he's focusing, concentrating on Lance's taste while he sucks. Lance slides his free hand down Nick's stomach and fumbles with the button on his jeans, trying to get inside. He presses the heel of his hand against Nick's hard length through the material, and Nick lets out a shivery moan, pushing into Lance.

"Turn around," he says.

His hands are clumsy as he pushes Lance against the central island, and Lance hisses in a breath at the chill of the countertop against his stomach, bracing himself on both hands. Nick pauses, running a hand down Lance's back, tracing the line of his spine and back up again, and Lance arches under the touch, pushing out his ass as Nick tugs at his sweatpants, leaving then halfway down his thighs. He's got one hand pressed heavy between Lance's shoulder blades as he leans in, bare chest warm against Lance's shoulder, and puts two of his fingers to Lance's lips.

Lance licks at them, mouths at them, getting them slick with spit as Nick bites at the curve of his jaw; he lets his teeth scrape as Nick pulls the fingers from his mouth. He turns his head to watch Nick suck them into his own mouth, getting them even slicker.

Nick moves to his other side as he presses both fingers in slow, slow, and Lance makes a sharp little sound, pulled from somewhere in his throat, as they sink into him.

"_Fuck_," he grits out, dropping his head to the counter, and he feels the huff of Nick's laughter against the back of his neck.

Nick drops kisses across Lance's shoulders as he strokes his fingers back out, running a thumb up the crease of Lance's ass and back down, circling before he presses in again, opening Lance up. Lance can't help himself, his hips are making little involuntary rolls back onto Nick's fingers, and he shifts his weight to reach down for his own cock. Nick knocks away his hand impatiently, grabbing Lance's wrist and pulling it up to press his fingers flat on the countertop. He hesitates for a moment, touch gone tentative on the back of Lance's hand, but Lance just pulls in a breath and releases, long and hard, body going lax and open. He rolls his head on his forearm to blink, heavy-lidded, at Nick, who's chewing his bottom lip again as he peers at Lance's face.

"Are you gonna fuck me, or not?" Lance manages to grate out, flexing his fingers against the slick countertop, trying for some kind of purchase.

Lance gasps in a breath as Nick's fingers pull out of his ass. He can hear Nick murmuring "Fuck fuck condom fuck," under his breath as he rummages in his pockets, and he takes the chance to lever himself up onto his elbows, thanking God the house is set back so far from the road as he turns his head and sees their reflection in the glass of the French doors against the darkening night sky. He can watch Nick's progress in the windows, sees Nick rip open a condom package with fingers and teeth, barely unzipping his jeans before he rolls it on, and he's already braced when Nick pushes in, hard and fast, pulling another gasp from Lance despite spit and leftover lube and the work of Nick's fingers. He scrabbles against the counter as his hips slam into the edge, lifted almost off his feet by the force of Nick's thrust, and then Nick's pulling him up, wrapping an arm around his waist to hold him, and he sets his hands on the edge and pushes back.

"Popcorn's cold," Nick says later, in bed, and Lance shrugs and stretches and rolls over to tuck his face against the curve of Nick's shoulder while he flips through TV channels with the remote.

 

•••

 

"This is another booty call, isn't it?" Nick asks when he shows up for their third movie night.

He's leaning in the doorway when Lance opens the door, one arm above his head, so calculatedly casual that Lance almost expects a camera to be following him.

"You can think of it as a date if you really want, princess," Lance says and rolls his eyes when Nick gives him the finger.

"We're not leaving the house," Nick says, stepping inside. "How is this a date?"

"Dude, I have dinner for us. That totally counts as a date."

"Wait. You're trying to tell me you made dinner? You actually ..." Nick stops as they reach the family room. "Dawg, you ordered pizza. What kind of a lame booty call is this?"

"It's a date, not a booty call. And it's, you know, fancy pizza," Lance says.

Nick's laughing too hard to pay much attention to him. It is fancy pizza, though - it's not like Lance called up Domino's, or something, and then had them tack on a mess of buffalo wings. He had to go out and pick up this pizza. It's got feta cheese on it. And five different kinds of meat. Left to his own devices, Lance probably would have made himself get something healthier, like artichoke hearts and spinach, but he was thinking of Nick and what Nick would like when he ordered it, OK?

And he totally didn't just say that this was really a date.

"So you ordered pizza for a _date_?" Nick gasps, in between high-pitched giggles.

"Shut up," Lance says, digging an elbow into Nick's ribs. "It's not a date. And since when do you turn down pizza, anyway, Carter? Or my booty, for that matter?"

Nick collapses in on himself when Lance elbows him, grabbing Lance's arm and pulling him down as he half-falls onto the sofa. Somebody's knee hits the pizza box, sending it skidding across the coffee table, and Lance yelps, scrambling for it as he imagines tomato sauce all over his beige rug. The box lands on the floor, upside down but still closed, and Lance shoots Nick a reproachful glance as he sets it back on the coffee table, opening it to find half the pizza - the top half - stuck to the lid of the box. Nick shrugs philosophically and picks a couple of pepperoni out of the mess of cheese, stuffing them in his mouth.

"Forks," he says with his mouth full.

Lance comes back with forks and napkins and a couple of bottles of beer to find Nick cross-legged on the floor, a neat pile beside him of books and magazines that he's cleared off the table top. Most of that stuff Lance hasn't even read, but he feels like maybe he should, so he keeps it sitting around. Nick's found the TV remote and is flipping through channels aimlessly, humming under his breath, and Lance cocks his head and listens for a minute.

"Is that 'Song for the Unloved?'" he asks, as Nick reaches for the napkins, folding a couple of them into makeshift coasters for the beer.

"It's something I'm working on with Leslie ... we're still fighting over who's going to get to keep it," Nick says, flashing a grin at him, but then his brow knits and he looks distracted, hums a melody line, almost to himself. "Do you think it sounds too much like 'Unloved?'"

Lance shrugs, shoving down Nick's section of the first verse somewhere in the back of his head.

"I don't know, what does the rest of it sound like?"

"I'd sing it for you, man, but I don't have my guitar. Hey, is one of those beers for me? Come down here."

Lance leaves the Italian sausage for Nick, but they fork-battle over the last of the pepperoni, sitting on the hardwood floor with the rug pushed back and the box between them as _Top Gun_ runs on the TV. Lance has gone too many rounds with Chris over the last piece of pizza, and he knows how to win, poking Nick in the side with his free hand so that he collapses into snorting laughter and smacks at Lance while Lance slips in under his guard with a fork. Lance grins and offers the pepperoni to Nick, who looks at him suspiciously before leaning in to nip it right off the end of the fork.

"Don't think I'm that easy," he says, once he's chewed and swallowed, washing down the bite with beer.

"Dude - dinner and a movie. How is that easy?" Lance wants to know. "That's, like, classic date material. It should get me at least to second base."

"I just think you're kind of cheating, man. I mean, if you're gonna invite me to your house for dinner, there should be something homemade, you know? You're gonna give me something out of a box? That's no way to get in a guy's pants."

"I'm surprised you bothered to wear pants," Lance says, arching an eyebrow.

"So, I think you're maybe mistaking me for you," Nick says.

Lance waves a desultory hand at him, leaning back against the sofa, too full to take proper offense. He displays empty hands for Foster, who's sniffing around him, hoping for a last piece of hamburger, and lets Dingo climb into his lap and lick his chin as Nick makes mock-disgusted sounds.

"They say a dog's mouth is cleaner than a human's, Carter. And I've let you put your tongue in my _mouth_, never mind licking my face."

"Yeah, but I've been licking _your_ ass, not my own," Nick says, reaching out to scratch under Foster's chin as she gives up her search.

Lance runs his tongue consideringly along the edge of his teeth before smirking back at the laughter bubbling under Nick's words.

"You're full of shit," he says, climbing to his feet, dumping Dingo into Nick's lap and reaching for the empty pizza box. "You have not."

"Yet," Nick says looking up at him through lowered lashes, and it's like he's caught Lance by the throat and squeezed, just briefly, stopping Lance's breath with a quick stutter-start, and it picks back up a little faster as Lance remembers the slick glide of Nick's fingers.

"Big talker," he manages to say, and Nick raises an eyebrow at him as he collects empties off the coffee table and puts them in Lance's outstretched free hand.

"Another beer, as long as you're getting me liquored up and taking advantage of me?" Nick calls, and Lance's hands are full, now, so he can't turn around and give Nick the finger.

"Kiss my ass," he throws over his shoulder, instead.

"I _told_ you, Bass, you just have to bring that fine, fine ass over here ..." Nick shouts after him.

"Promises, promises," Lance yells back from the front living room.

He takes a couple of minutes to wash his face after he tosses out the pizza box and puts the beer bottles in recycling.

He gets back to find Nick with his head tilted back against the couch cushion, eyes at half-mast like the blissed-out dog in his lap. Dingo's flopped over on her back, and Nick's got his free hand cradling the back of her head so she doesn't flip right off his legs as he scratches her belly.

"So easy," Lance tells her, shaking his head. She ignores him, making a happy little grunting sound at Nick instead, shifting deeper into his lap.

"Hello, pot?" Nick says, opening his eyes.

"Dude, callin' a guy a big ho is not the way to get into his pants, either," Lance says, crawling over Nick to stretch out on the sofa. "Your seduction technique needs work."

"It's a good thing you're so easy then, isn't it?" Nick says, giggling that high-pitched laugh of his.

Lance gives him a shove in the back of the head and twists, trying to dodge the return shot. Dingo wriggles and gives a small yelp, protesting the loss of Nick's scratching fingers.

"Pet the dog," Lance says, as Foster swarms onto the sofa. "I've got my hands full up here."

Nick makes a noncommittal sound, and Lance thinks he goes back to watching TV, although he could be falling asleep. _Working Girl_ is on, because it's the thing that popped up next on whatever cable channel they'd settled on, and neither of them wants to move to find the remote again. Lance watches bemusedly, full of pizza and half-dozing, until Nick snorts.

"What?" Lance asks.

"It's just ..." Nick waves a hand around. "They try to make such a big deal about how he likes her because she's so different from all the other women he knows, but he only likes her because she's trying to be more like them. Change who she is."

"Sometimes you gotta play the game," Lance says. "That's how you get ahead in the business. It's like a costume. You know that."

Nick snorts again, but this time it sounds amused.

"_What_?" Lance asks, propping himself up on one elbow.

"Listen to you, Mr. Play-By-The-Rules," Nick says, tilting his head back to look at Lance. "When everybody knows you threw away that disco-ball trophy tryin' to be all edgy."

"Shut up, Carter," Lance says, and he'd poke Nick between the eyes, he really would, but it would mean moving Foster, who has a chin hooked over his thigh and is nosing at his hand for petting. "So spoiled," he tells her as he rubs her ears. "Rottenest _ever_."

"Hey," Nick says mildly.

"Not you."

"Does that mean you're not going to spoil me more?"

Lance can't help laughing. It's getting dark, the flush of sunset fading on the walls as twilight filters into the room, and he should probably get up and turn on some lights. He'd have to move, though, and he's got his bare toes tucked down between the cushions and a sleepy puppy on top of him and the back of Nick's head pressing against his thigh, so instead, he just pats Nick on the head a few times and squirms deeper into the couch.

"It's different," he says, finally, trying to find words that can make Nick understand. "Different when everybody's watching you and following you, waiting, when all you have to do is make one dumb mistake and everyone will see, will find out who you really are ... You can't ... You have to be careful." He laughs, and it doesn't sound so happy this time. "Believe me, I know all about following the rules."

Nick shifts to look up at him again, and Lance realizes he's rolling a strand of hair between his fingers - slippery clean, no product, and Nick must have showered just before he came over this evening.

"But you're happier now, right?" Nick says. "Now that you're not hiding anymore?"

"Yeah," Lance says, burying his fingers in the silky mop of hair as Nick leans into his touch.

It's the last thing he really remembers until he wakes up in the dark with the muted TV casting enough blue light for him to see that Nick's fallen asleep with his head tilted back on the couch, and man, is that gonna hurt his neck. Lance pokes him awake before stumbling out to the kitchen, stubbing his toes against the couch in the front living room and bumping a hip against the dining room table in the dark. He squints in the soft light from the bulbs over the stove and almost gets knocked down by the dogs as they clickety-clatter in at a run, drawn by the sound of the kibble he pours in their bowls. Everything feels like it's in slow motion, and he dreads the climb up the stairs to his bedroom. Nick apparently felt the same way, because he's only gotten as far as climbing up on the sofa and sprawling out when Lance goes searching for him.

"Get up, lazy ass," Lance says, poking at him again.

"Mmph," Nick says into the cushions and waves a hand at Lance. "Tired. No more moving tonight."

"Dude, _bed_," Lance says, and Nick drops his hand.

Lance can't tell if he's considering the order or just falling back to sleep, but Nick finally pushes up against the sofa cushions, lifting himself enough to flop over on his back.

"C'mere," he says, yawning and scrubbing at his face with one hand as he sticks out the other.

Lance rolls his eyes again but takes the hand in one of his and pulls.

Nick pulls, and then he _pulls_, instead of getting up, and Lance stumbles and falls on top of him. His elbow lands somewhere soft in the vicinity of Nick's stomach, but Lance refuses to feel sorry for him - even in the face of the pained, high-pitched sound he makes - because that's what he gets, right? Nick shifts around, making little grumbling noises, and Lance flails, taken by surprise as a sharp move pitches him backward. He ends up trapped between the back of the sofa and Nick's body.

"Now, let me sleep, Bass," Nick says, dropping a forearm over his eyes.

"Get up, Carter," Lance says, poking at his ribs. "Get up. Get up. Get ... up."

Nick pushes the hand away, so Lance digs his toes into Nick's shins.

"Bed, Nick. A great big bed with me naked in it."

Nick waves a lazy hand at him again, and Lance is kind of insulted at the lack of interest in his naked body.

"Come on, Mr. Big Talker," he says, and he tugs at a piece of Nick's hair that's fallen across his forehead until Nick nudges the hand away with the side of one wrist. "You were talking big before. You gonna wimp out, now? Come on. Up. Get up."

He pokes at Nick again, in the side, where Nick's T-shirt's rucked up, sliding his fingers along bare skin, tracing newly defined muscles and edging into tickling.

"Nick. Hey, Nick. I'm supposed to get to second base, at least."

"In the morning, Lance, God," Nick says, grabbing at Lance's hand, not even opening his eyes.

He threads their fingers together and pulls them against his chest; at the same time, he slings one leg over Lance's ankle, trapping Lance's leg between his. Lance squirms, but Nick just squeezes his hand briefly and keeps lying there, breathing slow and even. Lance spreads his hand, feeling Nick's pulse under his index finger at the base of his throat. He considers wiggling around and getting himself free - it's not like he's really trapped - but it's too much effort, so he lies there instead, head propped on one hand, watching his fingers, laced through Nick's, moving in tiny circles against Nick's T-shirt in the blue television light. He flexes his hand and presses his palm against Nick's chest before letting his fingers fall lax.

Nick shifts again, turning his head and opening his eyes to look at Lance.

"What?" he says.

Lance kisses him.

Nick tries to say something against Lance's mouth, but it doesn't take long for him to give up and kiss back. It's slow and languid, Nick stroking a hand down to Lance's waist and up again to cup the back of his neck, fingers combing through the hair at Lance's nape, all careful touches and lingering press of lips. Nick shifts just a little bit more, turning toward Lance, and the movement gives Lance enough free space to move the arm he's been lying on. He pushes himself up and reaches to brush Nick's hair back from his forehead, sifting soft strands through his fingers while they kiss for long minutes in the flickering blue light. Lance finally bites at Nick's mouth, catches Nick's lower lip between his teeth, careful not to press too hard, and Nick licks at Lance's lips as he pulls back. He's still got Lance's fingers caught against his chest, running a thumb back and forth, slow on the back of Lance's hand, a brush of skin on skin that would have Lance lulled if not for the fine wire of electricity running underneath it.

"Nick," he says from somewhere deep in his chest, a low rumble, and Nick presses his forehead against Lance's temple, his breath a puff of air against Lance's cheek.

He kisses Lance again, wet heat and soft sounds in the dark, and Lance pulls his hand from the slack grip of Nick's fingers, draping his arm across broad shoulders, running his hand along Nick's back, slow up-and-down motions as they mouth at each other's lips, their tongues sliding together. Nick's got a hand on Lance's hip now, under his shirt, half-tucked into the waistband of his shorts, hot and a little sweaty against his skin.

"Yeah," Lance murmurs, breaking away to press his lips against the curve of Nick's jaw, scraping his teeth and tongue over the rasp of stubble there. "Nick ..."

Nick tugs at Lance as he rolls onto his back, palm curving to cup Lance's ass, and Lance follows Nick's hand, body drawn to the touch. He slings a knee over Nick and sits up, straddling him, looking down and studying his starkly shadowed face. His strokes his thumbs over Nick's chest through the thin material of his T-shirt as Nick settles one hand on his hip.

"Lance ..." Nick says, voice still rough with sleep and deeper than usual in the dark, raising his other hand to trace along Lance's cheekbone, down the line of his jaw, across his mouth.

Lance runs his tongue along the edge of his teeth, flicks it out to catch the tip of Nick's thumb and rides the swell of Nick's drawn breath underneath him. Then he leans down and kisses Nick again, soft little presses of his lips against Nick's chin, the corner of his mouth, the bow of his upper lip.

 

•••

 

They're going _out_ to get dinner at a _restaurant_, because Nick is going to show Lance how dinner is _done_. At least, that's what the message on Lance's voicemail said when Nick left a time he'd be picking Lance up, along with instructions to dress like they were going to a decent restaurant, Bass, none of that crazy sparkly denim and velvet stuff that Fatone or Chasez seem to think is appropriate dinnerwear.

Lance thinks about the promo shots for _Never Gone_ and tells himself Nick would have specified if Lance should actually dress up. Then he spends 45 minutes trying on shirts before he tells himself to stop being such a damn girl. He thinks about how Kathy would agree with him, not about how Shannon would punch him in the arm for the thought. He goes with a pair of nice pants and a summer-weight sweater because he always seems to freeze to death in public places in the middle of summer, when people jack up the air conditioning so high that they'd have the heat on, if it was that cold outside.

It hits him, when he opens his front door to Nick standing there wearing a blazer and a button-down over his jeans, hair combed and still a little bit damp, that this is Nick Carter taking him on a date.

This is Nick Carter taking him on a date in the middle of L.A.

"Is this a date?" Lance asks, as Nick opens the passenger door of the car for him. He looks up at Nick once he's slid into the seat. "This is a date, isn't it?"

Nick rolls his eyes and shuts the door.

"Dude, you're totally taking me out, aren't you?" Lance says as Nick pulls through the open gates at the foot of the driveway.

He looks down at his hands and pokes at a ragged cuticle, making a mental note to check on his next manicure appointment. Nick turns on the radio.

Lance is still not entirely convinced Ashton Kutcher isn't going to show up and tell him he's been punk'd, because, come on - Nick Carter, taking him on a date? Nick's not even his type. Nick is blond and given to brooding and, oh yeah, Lance tells himself brutally, stabbing at the offending cuticle, Nick is also in the closet about sucking dick, which makes him more surely Not Lance's Type than anything else could. Lance knows better than almost anybody on the entire planet how impossible it is to be in any kind of a relationship with someone who's out when you're in the closet, and he remembers hearing about how upset Nick got over Jane asking him if he was gay, even though Nick was at least gay enough for Howie, for a while. Lance has his suspicions about Tommy Lee, too.

He pokes at the idea of how he would have reacted if his mom had asked him the question in, say, 2001, instead of 2006 and actually flinches. Nick looks over questioningly, and Lance shakes his head, folding his fingers together to stop himself from any kind of nervous twitching at the thought that this could turn into a thing - not just a one-time thing or a five-time thing or a movie-night thing, but something that's going to last long enough that he could become somebody Nick will have to explain. This is Nick Carter, after all. Lance supposes there are plenty of girls out there, in their mid-20s or so, who had Nick Carter posters and Nick Carter T-shirts and Nick Carter _underwear_, or something, who would think this is a dream date, but Lance sort of thinks this might be like waking up and realizing you're going on a date with your eighth-grade physical-science lab partner who spent all his time knocking shit over while you were just trying to eke out a passing grade and who was the reigning champion of the school cafeteria burping contest. Fuckin' Barry Holt, Lance thinks and makes a face.

"Are you gonna be weird all night, man?" Nick asks.

He makes an abortive move, one hand reaching over toward Lance before he raises it to tug at his own collar, and Lance looks down at his fingers, white-knuckled in his lap.

"So, this is a date, isn't it?" he says as they turn onto Sunset.

Nick coasts to a stop at a light and turns to look at him through narrowed eyes.

"You can think of it as a booty call if you really want," he says. "Princess."

"Oh, fuck you, Carter," Lance says, slouching down in his seat. "See if you get past second base tonight."

Nick lets Lance open his own car door after he parks, standing on the driver's side until Lance pushes the passenger door closed and Nick can click the locks. Lance can't help thinking it's a deliberate oversight, and he can't figure out if he feels slighted or relieved. He scans up and down the sidewalk as they make their way to the restaurant, spots a couple of familiar faces loitering, although they seem to be focusing their attention somewhere on the other side of the street.

"Cameras at seven o'clock," he murmurs to Nick, who tosses a look back over his shoulder and shrugs.

"Not something you can really get away from," he says, taking Lance's elbow and steering him toward a wall of glass doors leading into a hotel lobby.

"Nick," Lance says warningly, tensing against the touch, old instincts clicking back into place. "All those cameras might be down the street right now, but everybody's got a cellphone camera these days."

"So, what?" Nick says, pausing, one hand still on Lance's elbow, one on a door handle. "You don't want to be seen, now? Lance Bass doesn't want to be _seen_?"

"Oh, so you're OK with us being seen together?" Lance says, pushing inside the door, shivering in the sudden blast of chilled air. "You're OK being seen on a _date_ together, or something?"

"I told you, if there's such a problem with it, don't think of it as a damn date, then," Nick says, shoving his hands in his pockets, mouth thinning as he presses his lips together. He stares out the glass doors, looking back to the street outside.

"OK, this is a bad idea," Lance says.

"No, look, I'm sorry, OK?" Nick says, turning to him. "We were going to have a nice dinner, can we just ... can we just have dinner? Please? OK?"

"Nick ..."

"Lance. Please. Just let me buy you dinner, OK?"

Lance fights the nervous urge to rub his knuckles along the side seam of his pants, an adolescent habit he thought boyband bootcamp long since trained out of him. Nick's got a little furrow between pinched-together eyebrows, and Lance's traitorous fingers twitch, wanting to smooth it out against his better judgement. He curls them inside the cuffs of his sweater, trying to stay warm.

"OK," he says, hoping his words are enough. "All right."

They're early, and Lance orders a screwdriver at the bar while they wait for their table, lounging with studied casualness and looking around to assess the rest of the clientele. Beside him, close but not too close, Nick's making ring patterns with the bottom of his beer bottle on the bar's polished wood surface.

"Didn't this used to be Justin's place?" he asks, looking around.

Huh, Lance thinks, giving the restaurant another quick scan. He hadn't even thought about it until Nick said something. Now he wonders what that's about, of course - Nick's decision to come here, to what used to be Chi, of all the places they could go to dinner in L.A.

He keeps expecting questions about Justin, but they never come. Nick doesn't seem to wonder about Justin, the way he seems to wonder - from the couple of questions he's asked - about Jesse, the way Lance wonders about Howie. Lance is pretty sure Nick's seen the picture of Jesse that Lance still keeps - in his office, not enshrined in the bedroom or anything, because he's not _that_ pathetic or creepy, but still somewhere that it doesn't look like he's ashamed to have it. The pictures of Justin are NSYNC pictures, of course, either official shots on Lance's brag wall or as part of the few candids he displays, but still. There's really no escaping Justin, is there?

Maybe it's not that Nick doesn't wonder, it's just that he won't ask. If he did ask, Lance could tell him there's nothing to wonder about - although he doesn't know if he'd admit that's almost entirely due to Justin. He never pined for Justin, exactly, because to pine, he'd have to imagine, at least a little bit, what it would be like to have him, and Lance never really managed that. It's not like everyone isn't a little like that about Justin, anyway - God knows Chris and JC were both besotted with him, even if neither of them had any interest in fucking him - so Lance has always felt a little less dumb than some people probably think he should about all the time he spent thinking Justin hung the moon. That's just Justin, and Lance is pretty sure people who don't see it are missing some part of their genetic makeup, like red-green colorblindness, Justin-blindness.

Looking back, Lance can admit - now - that he'd never expected equal return on his investment. All he'd expected, really, had been some kind of honesty, and when he'd gotten bullshit excuses instead, yeah, it pissed him off. Justin was gone long before he actually walked out on NSYNC, and that was enough for Lance to cut Justin out of his own loop for a while, the same way he felt he and Joey had been cut out of the loop. But it also freed him - he can be honest enough to admit that. Lance has never craved approval the way Justin does, only success, and if Justin was too damn afraid to deal NSYNC some kind of public coup de grace, well, Lance wasn't. If coming out killed the group, it killed the group - it's not like there was much left, at that point, anyway.

It took him a while to admit all that, though. And it's not what he wants to be thinking about on a ... _is_ this a date?

If Nick wanted to know something about Lance and Justin, he could just come out and ask.

"Yeah," he finally says, realizing Nick's still waiting for an answer to a question that was never more than idle conversation. "Why?"

It comes out kind of belligerent, more brusque than it really should have been, and Lance cringes to himself, although he keeps his face blank. It's out there, now, and there's nothing to do but brazen it out.

"I was just asking," Nick says, and there's a little bit of an edge to his voice.

It's a relief to turn to the guy who's just appeared at Lance's elbow, eyebrows not even raised a little bit, asking them if they're ready to be shown to their table.

Lance looks around as they make the walk, checking out what's been done to the restaurant, using that cover to check out any reaction to their presence, wondering who recognizes him, who recognizes Nick, what people think about them being there together. A guy Lance recognizes but can't place tries to hold his gaze from a table in the corner, but Lance lets his eyes skate past, over the other three people at the table and beyond, deliberately nonchalant. He can feel the weight of speculation like a vise around the back of his neck, dogging his steps, familiar even after three years in the open.

"Are you OK?" Nick asks, once they sit down and he accepts a wine list.

Lance blinks at him, then waves a hand, taking a deep breath, trying to stretch out the knot that's formed between his shoulderblades.

"It's nothing," he says. "It's just ... everybody watching. Probably wondering what we're doing here together. I mean, it's not like we ever really spent much time together before this. Not like AJ and JC, or you and Chris. But you know. It's fine. Everything's good."

"Why is this such a problem for you?" Nick asks, fiddling with the edges of the tablecloth in his lap, not meeting Lance's eyes.

"It's not a problem for _me_," Lance says carefully, tilting his head and studying Nick.

"Then I don't ... what's going on?" Nick says, looking up. "You're being really weird tonight." He stretches out a hand across the tabletop.

"Nick, you have to _stop_ it," Lance says, low, under his breath, pulling his own hand out from under the touch. "People are gonna know what's going on."

Lance catches movement out of the corner of his eye and looks over to spot their waiter, who must be pretty fresh off the bus because he looks kind of uncomfortable at Lance's tone, backing away from the table instead of rolling his eyes with the look Lance has seen on the faces of some other service people in L.A., the look that lets you know they think you're a fucking diva when you ask for a water refill. It's not like Lance can blame this guy, though. He'd probably be sick of it, too, if he had to put up with this kind of stuff, emotional drama from strangers you can't escape. He is sick of it. He wonders if this is what people mean when they say "sick and tired," this bone-deep weariness that comes from wondering what kind of headlines are going to be in the tabloids next week, on the Internet tomorrow. He thought he was done feeling like this.

"You know what? I think I'm just going to go," Nick says, pushing back his chair and standing up. "Clearly, you don't want to be here with me, so how about I just leave?"

Lance snaps his mouth shut and sits stone-faced as Nick stomps away. He's suddenly so angry he probably couldn't speak, anyway, and he takes a vicious stab at a roll with his fork, refusing to look around to see who's staring or shooting surreptitious glances his way. He always knew Nick was a douche, him and his whole stupid group. It's not like Lance can't find another fuckbuddy. L.A. is full of dumb pretty boys who'd be willing to fuck him. He knows that.

He's reaching in his pocket for his wallet because someone is going to have to pay for the drinks, at least, when he looks up like a bad dream and sees Reichen at the bar, and his face goes instantly hot.

Well, fuck, he thinks, frozen in place, because that's just the perfect cherry on top of this whole evening - Reichen seeing him like this, alone in a restaurant because somebody walked out on him.

Of course Jesse walked out on him, he remembers Reichen saying - nobody else would be able to put up with Lance, he was too high-maintenance, there was nothing else he could really expect. He remembers the unfairness of it and the ... the absolute hypocrisy of being called "high-maintenance" and "difficult" by Reichen, of all people. Most of all, he remembers the sting of wounded pride, and he can't let himself be seen like this, but he's not sure what to do.

He's still sitting there, mind running in circles like some damn hamster when Nick comes stomping back.

"Don't worry about the bill, Bass, it was my treat, I suppose," he says, looking pointedly at Lance's wallet still lying on the table.

The word "treat" sounds ugly, but Lance has other things to think about right now. Nick looks up from his billfold and sighs when he realizes Lance hasn't moved.

"_What_?" he says.

Lance can't stop himself from sketching a quick glance over at Reichen being seated, a couple of guys with him, so OK, it's not a date, he thinks, but Reichen's going to notice what's going on over here any minute, is going to see Nick and Lance arguing. Nick's pretty big and hard to miss, especially when he's in a temper.

Nick follows Lance's gaze. He stands there a minute, looking at Reichen's table.

"Oh," he says finally and looks back at Lance. "Um. Are you OK?"

"I'm fine," Lance says. "This town is too fucking small, but I'm fine."

He stares at the tablecloth. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Nick standing there, hands shoved in his pockets, shifting from foot to foot.

"Hey," Nick says after a minute of their weird stalemate of silence. "Let's get out of here."

Lance looks up at him, raising an eyebrow

"Yeah, no, come on," Nick says, reaching out to nudge Lance's shoulder. "Let's go."

He's got one hand on the back of Lance's chair, pulling it out from the table, and he reaches out with the other to grab Lance's hand, pulling him up. He's turning to go when Lance realizes they're going to have to walk right past Reichen's table to get out of the restaurant, and he stops in his tracks, jerking Nick to a halt.

"Are you crazy?" Lance hisses, low, getting right up into Nick's personal space so no one else will hear him. "I don't want to have to, like, talk to him, or look at him, or interact with him in any way. At all. I don't want him to see us."

Lance is pretty sure that any kind of interaction, even eye contact, is only going to end badly, and really, he's tired of sniping at people tonight. He can't quite read the expression that crosses Nick's face at his words, but then it's gone, and Nick nods. He looks around and manages to catch the eye of their waiter, who seems a little bit afraid to come back over to their table - the kid's really going to have to toughen up if he's going to stay alive in this town, Lance thinks. Nick steps away from Lance to lean into the guy, saying something low as he rifles through his billfold and discreetly hands over some cash. The waiter says something to Nick, sketching an arc in the air with one hand, and Nick nods, looking back at Lance. Lance almost misses the hand Nick holds out to him. He's too busy boggling, wondering where this suave guy came from and what he did with Nick Carter, the kid who had farting contests with Chris and AJ in Germany. He's like a grownup, or something.

"Come on, Lance," Nick murmurs, taking a couple of steps back to him, and then he's got one hand in the small of Lance's back and he's steering Lance toward a back corner of the restaurant.

They go through a swinging door, and oh, Lance thinks. They're in the kitchen. He's still feeling kind of blank as Nick takes his hand and leads him past a long table with a couple of guys chopping and measuring stuff. The smell of something garlicky and buttery, tomato-y and fabulous wafts from the direction of the grill, and Lance's stomach suddenly reminds him that they never got to the dinner part of dinner, tonight. Nick looks back and grins at him, and Lance shoves at his shoulder with his free hand. He doesn't let go when Nick tugs him along by their interlaced fingers.

They pass a blonde girl washing something leafy in a deep sink - she's smack in the middle of that mid-20s demographic Lance was thinking about earlier - and she looks up at them, distracted, before returning to her greens. The double-take is almost comic - you'd have to do a dozen takes to get it that perfect in a movie, Lance thinks - and she squeaks when she looks back at them, slapping a damp hand over her mouth, eyes wide as she looks from Nick to Lance to Nick, again.

"Oh my _God_," she says, behind her fingers, and it's about three octaves lower than she probably could have managed to hit a decade ago, but there's still enough volume to it that Lance looks back over his shoulder to see if anyone heard her. He turns back to see Nick grinning and putting a finger to his lips in a "quiet" gesture; he whispers "paparazzi" to her, and she nods, eyes big, and watches as Nick steers Lance around a corner and out of sight.

They've hit dry goods now, and Lance is suddenly hyperaware of the press of Nick's hand in the small of his back, through the thin weave of his sweater, the kind of steadiness and pressure and direction Lacey kept demanding from Lance when they were dancing partnered, when she was trying to make it look like she was relying on him to lead her, trying to make it look like she could rely on him. He comes to an abrupt halt, digging in his heels, and Nick stops with him, just short of the exit door, turning to look at him.

"What?" Nick says.

It's not sharp, not defensive, the way it was earlier. It's just ... curious, like their mini-intrigue has wiped away the memory of everything that went wrong earlier tonight.

Lance reaches out with his free hand, wanting to touch, to feel the weight and solidity of Nick under his fingers. He settles for tugging at Nick's sleeve a little bit, like he's trying to get Nick's attention, even though he already seems to have Nick's attention. It gives his hand something to do as he watches the rise and fall of Nick's chest as he breathes.

"Um. Thanks," he says, finally. "For ... you know." He slants a look up at Nick's face.

Nick shrugs and slides his fingers out of Lance's grasp, pulling both of his hands away from Lance and shoving them in his pockets again. Lance can't quite read the look on his face, but he seems almost ... embarrassed? Lance halfway expects him to scuff his damn toe on the ground and say "Aw, shucks."

"No," Lance says, stepping closer. "Really. Thank you."

He tilts Nick's chin down to kiss him, and Nick lifts one of his hands - God, those big hands, Lance thinks, distractedly - to cup Lance's cheek as their mouths meet. It's soft, brief, but Nick follows him when Lance tries to pull back, so Lance settles in and opens his mouth for Nick, tasting a lingering sharp hint of beer as he slides an arm around Nick and holds on. He slicks his tongue across Nick's lips, makes a shamelessly greedy sound when Nick tries to pull away, just far enough to suck in a breath, and Nick brings up his other hand to frame Lance's face. They stand there for a minute, trading small soft kisses, kisses that remind Lance of that lazy, sleepy night in front of the television, remind him why his stomach flipped over when he checked his voicemail and heard Nick's voice talking about dinner plans in the first place. He puts a hand on Nick's forearm, slides it up to bracelet Nick's wrist, tugging Nick's hand down to twist their fingers together.

When they pull apart, Nick rubs a thumb over Lance's cheekbone as he ducks his head and looks at Lance through his eyelashes and that fringe of bangs that falls across his eyes when his hair's this long. Lance's fingers itch to comb it back from his face, so he does, tucking a strand behind Nick's ear. Nick gives a little tug at the hair at the nape of Lance's neck before he steps back.

"Ready to go?" he asks, and when Lance nods, he turns around and takes a breath before pushing open the exit door.

"You are getting the most fabulous blowjob ever," Lance murmurs, low, as they slip out into the alley, into the steamy summer heat, and Nick giggles - actually giggles, in that high-pitched laugh of his.

He doesn't let go of Lance's hand until they step out onto the sidewalk, already looking around and trying to figure out how to get back to the car.

 

•••

 

"No, I know," Lance says, trying to keep the cellphone jammed between his shoulder and his ear as he shifts his grocery bags to one hand and digs in his pocket for his keys with the other. "I know. I just ... I don't know that they're taking me seriously on this, you know? I feel like maybe they think I won't be able to handle it, or somethin'."

"Do you know how many people they're looking at, at this point?" Neil asks in his ear as Lance rounds the corner of the house and spots Nick waiting for him, shoes off, feet in the pool as he leans back on his hands with his face turned up to the sun.

"Three, maybe four, seriously, is what I've heard," Lance says, jerking his chin in greeting as Nick turns his head at the sound of Lance's voice. "It's just. I don't know. They were talkin' about how they'd have to re-work some of it for my voice if they go with me for the part, so ..."

"Listen, it's a new show," Neil says. "They're going to be re-working stuff as they go along anyway. Everybody does. It's probably one reason they're talking about the initial San Francisco run before moving to New York. If the Castro isn't going to forgive you for working out your kinks in public, who is?"

"Especially for this show, right?" Lance says and laughs, grinning at Nick as he comes loping over, hand extended to take some of the bags from Lance.

"You know it," Neil says. "Listen, you have to let them know how hard you're willing to work for this. You're the guy who survived the Black Forest with bubble gum, string and a Swiss Army knife, right?"

"Yeah, but I think they're more worried about me bein' the guy who fell on his ass doing the West Coast Swing," Lance says.

"Whatever. You know Whitty wants to be able to use gay actors as much as he can. Don't sell yourself short, man."

"You should be talking to them, too," Lance says, fumbling with his keys as he tries to unlock the back patio door. "You know they'd jump all over the chance to have you as Michael. We could be _boyfriends_."

"Shut up," Neil says. "You know I'd be all over the chance to talk to them if I could fit it around my contract. It's not that I don't love Barney, and all, but God. Michael Tolliver ..."

His voice sounds kind of dreamy, and Lance grins again. Yeah, he knows. Just the idea of a supporting role has got Lance freaking out, and he almost can't believe the producers were willing to talk to him. He knows it's a long-shot, but he thinks maybe there are only two things he's wanted this much in his life before this - NSYNC and space.

"Think about it, dude," he tells Neil. "Use some of those Dr. Horrible superpowers and figure out a way. Listen, I gotta go. I'll let you know how it goes the next time I talk to Ken, OK?"

He snaps the phone shut after Neil's goodbye and holds up his remaining plastic bag to Nick.   
"Dinner?" he says.

"You're not making tuna casserole or anything, are you?" Nick asks as he holds open the door and follows Lance into the kitchen. He sounds wary.

"What's wrong with tuna casserole?" Lance tries to stay deadpan, but Nick's struggle to stay polite is too obvious, and in the end, Lance ruins it by laughing. "Oh man, if you could have seen your face. You were tryin' so hard to find something to say."

He's not expecting it when Nick comes in low, knocking the breath and a small "uff" out of him, and he drops his plastic bag and flails as Nick hauls him over one shoulder in a fireman's carry. Nick makes a theatric grunting noise of effort, setting off Lance's laughter again, and Lance almost overbalances. He grabs the back of Nick's waistband to keep from tipping too far and falling on his head.

"Oh, my God, put me down," he says.  "Maybe dinner should wait," Nick says, squeezing his ass.

"It is possible for us to cook something without having sex, you know," Lance says.

He suddenly finds himself right-side-up, on his feet, looking into Nick's puzzled face.

"Why would we want to do that?"

Nick seems genuinely baffled, and Lance opens and closes his mouth a few times before Nick starts snickering. Lance jumps him, and he staggers, but he's apparently had plenty of practice flinging around other boys - and probably other Boys - because their fall is controlled enough that the only thing that gets whacked too hard as they go down is Lance's elbow on the marble of the kitchen island. He hits his funny bone, which probably serves him right, the numb tingle just distracting enough that Nick's able to roll on top of him after taking most of the force of the fall on his hip. He slides his hands up Lance's arms and pins his wrists to the floor as he straddles him.

"Hi," Lance says huskily, trying for seductive, and he wiggles.

This is a promising position, one they've been in before.

"It is possible for us to cook something without having sex, you know," Nick says.

"But why would we want to?" Lance tugs against the hands holding his down, so that Nick's fingers tighten on his wrists, and he raises one knee, pressing his thigh solidly against Nick's balls.

"Because you were going to make me dinner," Nick says, squirming, and Lance can feel him hardening, pressure that twists up his own hips, sharp, in response. "Stop that."

Nick drops his head to give Lance a peck on the nose before he clambers up, pulling himself on the edge of the counter. He reaches back down, but Lance leans back on his hands and studies him for a moment before finally holding out an answering hand.

He uses his body's momentum to carry him into Nick, pressing against him and claiming a real kiss once he's on his feet, slicking his tongue inside Nick's mouth. He pulls away, grinning, when Nick's hands come up to frame his face.

"I have to chop," he says.

"Tease," Nick says. "And anyway, don't try to tell me you can cook, Lance."

"I can cook!"

"South Beach TV dinners don't count," Nick says.

Lance waves a dismissive hand.

"Here," he says, digging in his pocket for a dog-eared index card. "There's a list of herbs and stuff, help me find everything."

He hands one of the grocery bags to Nick and starts poking through another.

"What ... is all this stuff?" Nick asks, pawing through the bag. "I don't even know what I'm looking at. Looking for. Whatever."

"Um. That's ... oregano," Lance says, peering into Nick's bag and digging around, pressing his cheek to Nick's shoulder to get a closer look. "And that's parsley. Here, this one's basil. See?"

He rubs one of the leaves between his fingers and holds them under Nick's nose. The scent fills his own head, sharp and familiar.

"That's not parsley," Nick says, squinting skeptically. He's absently rubbing one of the basil leaves, himself, knuckles bumping Lance's before he raises his fingers to his own nose.

"It's Italian parsley," Lance says. He hadn't believed it the first time, either. "For Italian garlic bread. You mix it all up in butter and spread it on the bread before you put it in the oven. That's why I got the minced garlic, so I don't have to chop that up, too."

Lance had to go shopping for this dinner because it's not like he's going to have this many carbs sitting around his kitchen if he can help it. "I've got pasta," Nick had said, as Lance contemplated his choices in the grocery aisle, but, "Not the right kind, I bet," Lance had said into his cellphone, pulling down the package of penne.

"What am I doing, while you're doing all this chopping?" Nick asks.

"Sauce."

Lance gestures at the tomatoes he's pulled out of his own bag. They're a little worse for wear after their sudden fall, but they're going to use them right away, anyway, right?

"That is not a jar of sauce," Nick says, still skeptical.

"Come on, Carter. You wanted proof I'd cook to get in your pants. Work with me, here. I mean, I could have opened up a can of Spaghetti-Os, and then where would we be?"

"In your pants, by now," Nick says, making a face that Lance doesn't really think is appropriate accompaniment to the idea of getting into his pants, for God's sake. "I wouldn't have wasted my time on Spaghetti-Os."

"So you're what, some kind of ... of freakin' connoisseur of canned pasta?" Lance rolls his eyes, hefting a knife.

"I know enough not to eat Spaghetti-Os," Nick says, examining the tomatoes, picking them up and running surprisingly gentle fingers over their surfaces as if he's learning the shape of each of them. It's a little bit distracting and Lance finds himself pausing over a pile of half-chopped parsley. "If you can't at least spring for Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee ... how cheap a date do you think I am?"

"Pretty cheap, if Spaghetti-Os will get me into your pants _faster_," Lance says and grins as Nick gives him the finger. He gestures at the tomatoes with his knife. "Peel those. And then find the garlic in one of those bags."

Tomatoes and garlic in just a drizzle of olive oil, something light, Joey had rhapsodized over the phone when Lance called him to confer on this recipe - between digging at Lance for details. Well, whining, really, in that wheedling Joey tone that usually pulled whatever information there was to be pulled out of Lance. He never had been any good at resisting Joe, particularly when he could picture the big brown eyes that went with the tone. Joey would know Lance could see them, too, even across the country from Orlando to L.A.

"You're _cooking_," he'd said. "Who is this new guy? He must be someone pretty good."

Lance remembers Nick's hand firm in the small of his back, the brush of Nick's thumb against his cheekbone at the restaurant two nights ago, and he can feel his face heating, his stomach hollowing out just a little. He sets down the knife, shaking out his hands nervously.

"Here," he tells Nick, gesturing at his piles of herbs. "Mush these up in the butter. Over there."

"You bought real butter?" Nick says, examining the package

"Somewhere, somehow, Joey Fatone would have a heart spasm if I tried to make his special, fabulous Italian bread with anything other than real butter," Lance says, wiping his fingers off on his jeans, and Nick laughs. "At least, that's what he told me when I called him for the recipe."

"You told Joey you were cooking me dinner?" Nick looks up from the bowl where he's trying to squash a stick of butter that hasn't really had time to warm up.

"Yes," Lance says baldly, boldly.

It's not true, of course. Lance had made his own face at the phone, knowing Joey could picture his expression just as well, and complained that he didn't need all his dates vetted, he could pick decent guys sometimes, you know. And, he'd continued, ignoring Joey's snort, it wasn't like that, anyway. He was just trying to do something a little bit nice, right? It's not like it was some kinda' _relationship_.

He's not entirely sure why he hadn't just told Joey that it was Nick he's cooking for. It's not like Joe would suspect it was anything other than a friendly gesture for a guy who was ... used to be? ... a colleague.

Lance looks down at the olive oil he's measuring into a saucepan, watching the small puddle creep across the bottom of the pot's surface. OK, no. Joey would suspect something, because really, when did Lance ever cook, unless it involved either a TV camera or the backyard and a grill and the chance to poke around at some kind of fire? Joey would suspect something immediately, even if it's not actually like that.

It's _not_ actually like that, Lance tells himself, banging his wooden spoon kind of hard against the side of the pot to knock off a couple of clingy tomatoes. It can't be. Not the way Joey would think it is. Lance isn't dumb enough to get that invested in something that can't possibly last. Trying to be with Nick ... it'd be shutting the closet door after the horse was long gone. Lance couldn't do it even if he wanted to.

"Everything OK?" Nick asks, hovering at Lance's side.

Lance has a sudden sharp urge to elbow him out of the way, to push enough so Nick's not breathing down his neck. His grip tightens on the spoon, and his shoulders feel tense, and it's all he can do not to shrug off Nick's hand on his shoulder. He's had too many years of curbing the urge to shove off intrusive hands, though - photographers who want him to look a certain way and choreographers who want him to move a certain way and interviewers who want to be just a little too chummy. Instead, he slips out from under the touch to move to the cupboard that contains his haphazard jumble of spices.

"Red pepper," he tosses back over his shoulder by way of explanation, as he rummages.

It's one of the few ingredients he already had, even though he wonders how long it's been sitting around in there. It's dark inside the cupboard, right? Isn't that supposed to keep spices OK longer?

When he turns back around, Nick is poking gingerly at the tomato mixture with the spoon.

"Maybe you should have called Rocco, instead of Fatone," he says.

"Fuck off, Carter, my sauce will be stupendous."

"Yeah, I bet," Nick says, leering.

"Quit it. Stop poking at it. Go boil some water for the pasta or something." Lance nudges Nick out of the way.

He can't find his measuring spoons in the mess the counter has become, so he sprinkles red pepper flakes straight into the saucepan and hopes for the best.

"So," Nick says, casually, leaning on the counter and flicking at a plastic bag. "Were you talking to Neil?"

"Ye ... es?" Lance says, looking over at him.

"Are they still going around about _Tales of the City_?" Nick asks, looking up at him.

"Yeah," Lance says, playing with the heat under his saucepan before he looks back at Nick.

Nick nods, solemn, and goes back to playing with the plastic bag.

"You've been talking to Neil a lot lately," he says.

"Not that much." Lance says. "I mean, a little more than usual, because of these talks about the show ... Wait. What? Oh my God. Are you _jealous_? You're jealous, aren't you?"

He probably shouldn't laugh, but he can't help it, some of his earlier giddiness returning.

"What? _No_." Nick says, but he's scowling, still focused on his empty plastic bag. "I am not jealous."

"Hey," Lance says. He can't quite stop grinning, but he sets down his wooden spoon and nudges up against Nick's side. "Hey. Neil and I have been friends for a long time. Since ... since before both of us came out. And that's about twice as long as that amount of time would be for anybody else. So. You know."

"Yeah." Nick says. He still won't look at Lance, but he tilts his head toward him and nudges back with one hip.

"Believe me, I do not have anything goin' on with Neil Patrick Harris."

"No?"

"No. And if I did, I think Neil's boyfriend might have something to say about it. Everything's cool, Carter," Lance says, hooking his chin over Nick's shoulder and pressing a kiss to his temple. "Right?"

"Right."

"Right."

Everything's cool, Lance thinks. This can't possibly last, but that doesn't mean Lance can't enjoy it while he has it.

 

•••

 

Lance sits on the section of counter he's staked out and watches in terrified fascination as Nick slices and chops tomatoes, onions, peppers. This kitchen contains only the best - even if, OK, it's rarely used - and that knife is awfully sharp. Lance hopes Nick doesn't lose any fingers. Lance has plans for those fingers tonight.

"Is this Howie's influence, or what?" he asks.

"Don't be all like that."

"Like what?

"Like _that_, Lance. Anyway, this recipe is, like, Peruvian, or something."

"Impressive." Lance raises both an eyebrow and his empty glass in salute and reminder.

"Yeah, well, maybe if you guys had been willing to tour outside the U.S., you'd've had a little class, too," Nick says, grabbing the glass to refill it and his own with another round of Pisco sours.

"Hey, I did my time in Germany," Lance says, and he can't help making a face as he thinks back to sweaty vinyl bench seats in vans and mildew in the back corners of old auditoriums. "Anyway, you don't really think I'm going to eat that, do you?"

He accepts his drink and tugs at the front of Nick's T-shirt to pull him closer. He's suspicious of this whole _ceviche_ enterprise, has been since Nick tugged him into the fish market, practically bouncing, but it's left Nick smelling spicy, like the cumin and cilantro and lime he's managed to get everywhere. His taste is sticky sweet tart grape when Lance slicks a tongue into his mouth.

"What do you mean?" Nick asks when he pulls back. He sounds a little breathless.

"It's _raw_," Lance says. "Raw _fish_."

"It's not _raw_. What do you mean 'raw?' It's just not ... cooked." Nick squints at him like he's nuts. "And you eat sushi, anyway."

"I don't sleep with the sushi chef." Lance isn't about to eat raw fish prepared by any of the people he's slept with. Culinary skills weren't the talents he was looking for, in any of them. "And it's not like I like sushi."

"What?" Nick looks perplexed, but it doesn't stop one of his hands from sliding up the leg Lance wraps around his waist.

He pushes up Lance's shorts and smoothes his fingers absently along the muscles of Lance's thigh, fingertips calloused from his attempts at the guitar and the pull of rope on the boat. He's still radiating heat from their day out at the marina, and Lance has to fight the urge to wiggle and press even closer to the solid body against his.

"I don't like sushi," he says. "You know that."

"You told me you didn't like sushi because you didn't like the rice," Nick says.

"Well. You know. That's what I say. Because you're supposed to like sushi. I can't just say it's because it's raw fish."

"That's dumb." Nick kisses him again, quick, before disentangling himself to go back to his dinner preparations, even though Lance isn't sure what the rush is - it's not like anything's going to burn.

You're dumb, he would have said in response to Joey, or to Justin, or to Jesse, but Nick's not any of them. Instead Lance just sits there, slouched and sleepy, dopey with the exhaustion of a day of sun and sand and salt water, bumping his bare heels in a soft ratta-tat against the wood of his cabinets and humming to himself as Nick dices onions. He breaks off as he realizes he's picked up the song Nick's been singing snatches of under his breath for weeks now.

"So, who got the song?" he asks.

"What?"

"The song you and Leslie were writing. Who's going to record it?"

"Eh, I let her have it," Nick says, waving a hand and flinging a bit of onion across the kitchen. "It's just going to be that much longer 'til my album, anyway, so ..."

"Wait. What? You're putting off the album? When did you decide this?"

"This week," Nick says, studying the tip of his knife as he digs it into the cutting board. "We're going to go ahead on another group album this year. I'm gonna wait on mine."

"Oh."

It's not like Lance hadn't known that was a possibility. Just last week he'd told Nick that JC's second album was likely to come out before Nick finished his - but it's not like Lance had been serious.

"No, it's good," Nick says, sliding a look Lance's way out of the corner of his eye before he goes back to his onion, reducing it to slivers. "I'm not really at ... the right place right now. I think working with the other guys is a good idea. A better idea. Than putting out something by myself, right now, I mean. What?"

Lance gestures at the onion, and Nick looks down and laughs before pushing the mangled pieces off the cutting board and into the garbage disposal.

"So, it's good, then?" Lance asks.

"Yeah, it's good. Right?" Nick says, looking over at him.

"Well, yeah," Lance says slowly. "If it's ... what you want to do?"

"Yeah," Nick says, and he sounds ... relieved? "Yeah, I think it really is."

Lance feels like he just missed half of their conversation, but Nick's too busy pulling the Tupperware container of fish out of the refrigerator and draining the lemon juice for Lance to try getting more information out of him right now.

"I can't believe you even tried eating this in the first place," Lance says.

"Kevin made us," Nick admits. "Plus, AJ dared me."

"He'd have to, wouldn't he?"

Lance waits until Nick looks his way, then licks the rim of his glass, running his tongue around the edge slowly. He grins when Nick bangs open a cabinet door a little harder than necessary.

"I thought you'd like it," Nick says.

Lance tilts his head at the edge of frustration sliding underneath the words.

"I'd have been happy with, you know. Popcorn?" Lance tries hard to keep a straight face.

"Anyway," Nick says, turning back to the chopping block and tossing peppers recklessly in with the fish, "you're already drinking raw egg whites in there."

"I'm counting on the alcohol to kill the salmonella."

"Where'd you put the ... things?" Nick asks, waving the knife around.

"Put that down. No. Put it _down_," Lance says warily before he slips off the counter and pads toward Nick, tile cool under his bare feet. "They're up there, in the cupboard over the stove."

He takes the glass bowls when Nick turns to him, setting them on the counter before he reaches up to push Nick's hair back off his forehead.

"Hi," Nick says.

"Hi," he says and leans up for another quick kiss. "Things don't have to be all fancy, you know."

"It's not fancy, though," Nick says, flailing his hands around as if he's trying to figure out what to do with them. They seem to want to rest on Lance's hips, but it's like Nick keeps remembering at the last minute that they're a little bit messy. "Normal people eat it all the time. Well, normal Peruvian people."

"Normal people?"

"Here, just ... try one of the shrimp," Nick says, half-turning to fish one out of the plastic container. He holds it out and Lance can't help arching an eyebrow in suspicion. "No, come on. The shrimp was cooked, ahead of time."

It's tangy on Lance's tongue.

 

•••

 

Nick finds Lance staring out the double doors of the breakfast nook, blankly watching the abstract patter of raindrops hitting the swimming pool, and almost immediately starts banging pots around. Lance has been making dry old broiled cheese sandwiches for too long, he says. They need to make some good, old-fashioned, butter-slathered, frying-pan-style sandwiches, he says.

"You're kidding me," he says, digging around in the pantry before finally pulling down a loaf of bread.

"What?" Lance pulls out of his funk enough to get vaguely offended. It's perfectly good bread.

"You can't make grilled cheese sandwiches with rye bread, dawg."

For some ungodly reason, Lance feels compelled to tell him about the time they'd all gone to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show, in the post-Germany Orlando days, when they'd briefly found themselves back in obscurity and all they could find for toast was a loaf of JC's pumpernickel.

"Frickin' yuppies," Nick says absently, halfway in the refrigerator. "Hey, is this some of that butter left from when you made Italian bread?"

He tries to coat the maligned rye, making a face at it when the cold butter clumps and rips the bread, and Lance hipchecks him, reaching for the stick.

"Give me that. No, stop it. Give it here," he says, batting Nick's hands away.

He sets the microwave for 40 seconds and turns back to find Nick propped against the counter, studying him. His gaze seems a little far away.

"What?" Lance asks, suspicious. He looks down at himself, rubbing a hand across the front of his T-shirt.

"So, did you dress up?" Nick asks and grins. "You'd'a looked real pretty as Janet."

"Oh my God, Carter, you're not gettin' me in a slip, you freak. Forget it."

"Come on, Bass. I promise not to post any pictures on the Internet. Your mama will never find out." Nick reaches to slip two fingers through a front belt loop on Lance's jeans, tugging him closer. "I'll even let you make me a man."

He wiggles his eyebrows; Lance suspects it's supposed to be seductive.

"Quit it," he says, reaching up to poke Nick in the forehead, trying to control the grin that threatens to quirk the corners of his mouth. "And don't mention my mama when you're tryin' to sex me up, dumbass. That's just wrong."

"OK, no, I promise," Nick says, nodding his head, eyes big and guileless as he slides a hand around Lance's waist to grab his ass.

The microwave dings.

"Shit," Lance says when he opens the door and surveys the puddle of melted butter. "I was supposed to keep an eye on that."

"Here, give it," Nick says, waving a hand at him.

Lance makes dramatic faces as he gingerly picks up the remains of the stick. It's mushy on the outside, still hard on the inside, but Nick scrapes off the soft outer layer and starts liberally slathering it on some new pieces of rye.

"I'd like some bread with my butter, please," Lance says, doing mental calculations and wincing internally.

Salad for dinner, then. With lo-fat dressing. He wrinkles his nose at the melted butter on his fingers and wipes his hand on the seat of his jeans. Nick rolls his eyes.

"Seriously, have you ever had a grilled-cheese sandwich without enough butter?" he asks, poking at the bread slices. "Oh, yeah, I forgot. That's how you eat them all the time."

"Shut up," Lance says, crossing his arms over his chest.

"You would've, though, you know?" Nick says. The buttered bread makes a soft hissing sound as he drops it into the heated pan.

"Would've what?"

"Looked pretty," Nick says, studiously arranging bread slices. His cheeks look a little pink. "I just mean ... considering how pretty you were, and all."

Lance makes a face. He doesn't see pretty when he goes back and looks at pictures of his painfully pale platinum-blond phase, he just sees vulnerable. He hates looking at that kid, the boy who didn't manage to show any of the steel inside.

"Oh, you can talk about other people being pretty," he says. "With the way you looked? I've seen that video of you and the rain and your _mouth_ ..."

He needs to shut up, now. Nick doesn't need to know how many times Lance watched the "Quit Playing Games" video back in the day, watched Nick and his candy mouth and jailbait eyes with silky wet hair falling over them, watched and wondered what it would be like to be able to make Nick make those faces he was making. There were guilty days when Lance had half-suspected the whole reason Kevin was pissed off wasn't because Lou'd gone behind the backs of the Boys to put together NSYNC, but because he'd had some idea of what Lance wanted to do to Nick after watching that video.

Nick ... Nick had looked kind of vulnerable, too, but he'd been pretty, in a way Lance hadn't been, in a way that even Justin - with his compact strength and rangy body - hadn't been. And Lance thinks there's some ways Nick hasn't lost that vulnerability even as he's gotten older and bigger and broader.

"I don't believe it," Nick says, rummaging in the refrigerator again. "You don't have any regular white bread, but you've got these processed, individually wrapped slices of stuff that's probably not even cheese, really."

"That's what you're supposed to make grilled-cheese sandwiches with," Lance says, as offended on behalf of his cheap cheese as he was on behalf of his fancy bread.

"I know," Nick says, as he peels cellophane off the slices before squaring them up with the sandwiches in the pan. He uses extra cheese. "I just figured you'd have some kind of fancy expensive stuff."

"Dude, I can buy cheap stuff. I'm not Justin."

Nick snorts as he squashes the sandwiches with a spatula.

"You know, I can feel my arteries hardening already," Lance says, crossing his arms back over his chest and lounging against the refrigerator door.

His stomach rumbles, belying the disdain in his words, and Nick smirks at the sound.

"Fat-filled," he says, waving the frying pan around, blissfully oblivious as he almost loses one of the sandwiches over the edge. Lance twitches. "Cheese-stuffed," Nick continues. "It's not, you know, fried peanut butter and banana, or anything, Elvis, but I suppose it'll be good enough. And maybe you'll put something back on those hips for me to hold on to." He leers.

"Pickles," Lance says suddenly, pushing himself off the refrigerator door so he can open it.

"Dawg ..." Nick raises an eyebrow, setting the pan back on the stove with a clatter. "Even if that was possible, believe me, that's not the kind of weight I meant."

"What, you wouldn't do right by me, Carter?" Lance says, looking back over his shoulder. "I'm offended."

"You mean I'd be able to make an honest man of you?"

Nick quirks an eyebrow, but something in his eyes, something in his voice leaves a breathless, hollow place in Lance's chest.

Oh, he thinks. Shit.

"Are you calling me easy again?" he finds himself saying out loud, lightly, on autopilot.

"Well, Janet, you know what they say about you ..."

"Shut up," Lance says, grinning despite himself, and he turns back into the refrigerator, shifting around jars. "As I was saying, Rocky ... pickle slices. You have to pull the sandwiches apart and put the pickle slices in them and then mash them back together while the cheese is still gooey."

He sets the jar on the counter triumphantly. If there's food he's got 10 different kinds of, it's pickles. Lance approves, deeply, of anything with "0 calories" listed on the nutritional information section of the label.

"I don't know if that's a good idea," Nick says, flipping the sandwiches, fumbling and almost losing one over the edge of the pan. "That sounds kind of ... Um."

"You have to have pickle slices." Lance is pretty sure of this. "I mean, you really should have bacon, but you know. No bacon, so ... pickles. What? My mom used to do it. With tomato soup. Campbell's. It was one of my favorite lunches when I was, like, six. And sometimes, when tomatoes were in season, she'd slice one up and put it in there instead of pickles."

"That's kind of ... what's that word when you do something you're already doing, anyway?" Nick says. He sounds distracted. "I mean, if you're already having tomato soup, why'd you need tomatoes in your sandwich?"

"Well, what about Mexican food? You have tomatoes on that, but salsa on top, too, or to go with it, which is basically more tomatoes. Right?"

Lance isn't sure Nick's really paying attention to this conversation, again, because he's blinking and sort of smiling, and Lance has the horrible suspicion that Nick's thinking of 6-year-old Lance. Lance remembers being 6 years old - grilled cheese with pickles and red Kool-Aid and Dukes of Hazzard pajamas, and he was kind of a dork. The idea that Nick is picturing 6-year-old Lance with his grilled-cheese sandwiches is only slightly less horrifying than the idea of Nick picturing 19-year-old Lance in a slip, and Lance can only hope he's managed to make himself sound cooler than he actually was. He wonders what 6 years old was like for Nick and whether any of the other Carter children were old enough to distract Jane's attention for a little while, and whether it would be a good thing or a bad thing if they were.

That's something he definitely doesn't want to think about, and he'd a lot rather Nick think about him _now_, anyway, and so he distracts them both by reaching out and tugging on the belt loops of Nick's jeans, lining up their hips as he pulls Nick closer. Nick seems pretty willing to be distracted right up until he whirls around to rescue the sandwiches.

"You have to stop doing that," he says.

Lance presses up against him from behind, leaning his forehead against the back of Nick's shoulder and snaking hands around Nick's hips to toy with the button on his jeans.

"You really want me to stop?" he murmurs against Nick's shoulder, lips moving against soft cotton, warmed by the heat of Nick's body.

"I can't ... you're ... oh, man," Nick says. "They're burning. The sandwiches."

Lance pulls back so Nick can rescue the sandwiches from the frying pan.

"You are a fucking tease," Nick says.

"Not if I put out," Lance says. He smirks.

"Oh, so you're going to go the distance?" Nick asks, advancing on him, spatula in hand.

"But first," Lance says, holding up a finger as he dodges around the central island counter, "pickles. No. Really."

He opens the jar, and Nick huffs before turning to get the plate of sandwiches. Runny cheese stretches between two pieces of bread as he pulls one apart before letting it drop back on the plate.

"Ow! Fuck!" He sucks his fingers into his mouth for a minute, then pulls them out to wave his hand around in the air. "It's fine," he says, abashed, as Lance reaches out, and he pulls his hand away. "Just. Ow. Stings. That's hot."

"Give me ... no, stop it. Give it here," Lance says and grabs at the hand. "Let me see."

Nick's fingertips are pink, and they're hot and slick against Lance's lips, salty and rich, and he figures he's already in for a pound, anyway. He flicks out a tongue as he presses a light kiss to warm flesh. Nick runs his thumb over Lance's lower lip, cupping his jaw in a big palm.

"There'll be other parts," he says, low. "You know that, right?"

"It's fine," Lance says, pulling away.

It's not something he really wants to think about. He'd wanted the role of Jon Fielding, but it didn't work out, so it's time to set his sights on something else. He feels the light brush of fingers against the back of his neck before Nick goes back to the sandwiches, and he focuses on the pickles.

 

•••

 

"Why is VH1 calling to ask if I'm the new Backstreet Boy?"

"What?" Nick stands on Lance's doorstep, plastic grocery bag in hand, looking baffled.

"VH1 called to ask if I was taking Kevin's place on this album."

"What, do they have you on speed-dial or something?" Nick follows Lance inside, closing the front door as Lance heads back into the kitchen.

"Well, not me, personally." Lance would have given good money to see Beth's face when she called this morning to tell him about it, actually.

Nick pauses halfway in the refrigerator, putting away a couple of containers of ... is that potato salad? Lance cranes his head around to get a look at it.

"Did you _buy_ potato salad?" he asks.

"Yeah," Nick says. "In case anything goes wrong. Not that I'm dissing your cooking skills, or anything. Just, you know. In case."

"We're not taking something you bought at the store," Lance says, scowling at his bowl of pasta. He's already got the asparagus steamed and chopped, but he's not sure whether he should slice the cherry tomatoes in half.

"OK, fine, Emeril."

"Don't start."

"Whatever."

They've already had this argument - three times - Nick insisting something from the store would be just fine, God, Bass, it's just a cookout, and anyway AJ was already going to have enough food for twice as many people as would be there. But Lance is pretty sure Nick's guys at least suspect something about them, if they don't already know. And JC is going to be there from Lance's side, and Lance knows he knows. JC called Joey three times asking suspicious questions like he was some kind of stealth superspy - as if Joey wasn't going to turn right around and call Lance about it, anyway - before he dragged Lance out one night for one of those dinners where the silences said more than the words. So, yeah. Their guys know, or at least suspect, but they've never actually seen them together, and Lance isn't showing up for the first time of that with a couple of containers of stupid store-brand macaroni salad, or something, in hand. Not with Kevin Richardson there. Not with Howie Dorough there.

Anyway, JC will appreciate fancy homemade pasta salad, even if no one else does. Lance sort of wishes he'd dropped the $45 on the bottle of wine that should go with it, especially after he spent half an hour talking to the clerk at the store about the ingredients, but he can't quite shake the feeling that he shouldn't take alcohol to AJ's house, no matter how many times Nick tells him AJ's OK with other people drinking around him.

"The new Backstreet Boy, huh?" Nick leans against the refrigerator door, arms crossed, and Lance doesn't look at the tilt of his newly narrow hips, really. "That's ... huh. That's not the way I would have thought that would go."

"What, did you think nobody official was ever going to start asking questions about how much time we're spending together?" Lance stabs at a tomato. "It's not like some people haven't already been saying stuff online."

It'd started off as a mention here and there, of course - mainly celebrity-sighting items popping up a couple of times after a recent shopping trip or when they were out at a club one night, noting the latest boyband détente. Their shared background's insulated Nick from some of the speculation, of course - and longer than Lance really expected. But it's on a predictable, familiar course, one that Lance recognizes. Already there are a couple of people wondering out loud if ... well, if exactly what's going on, is actually going on. Lance spends the first hour of his morning online every other day with a knot in his stomach, prowling old "favorite" sites that aren't really favorites, wondering when it's going to jump from being wild speculation to being mere speculation, and trying to figure out why he ever thought sleeping with someone in the closet was a good idea. It's almost enough to give him some sympathy for Reichen.

Almost.

"I didn't think _that's_ what they would come up with." Nick holds up both hands in an "I'm harmless" gesture when Lance shoots him a look. "What? You don't think I actually told anybody that, do you?"

That's half the problem, of course - Lance isn't sure what Nick is going to say about them, or if he's even thinking about it.

"Make yourself useful," he tells Nick, pointing the knife at him. "There's green onions and parsley in that bag over there. If you can make _ceviche_ and keep all your fingers, you don't get to pretend you can't use a knife."

"We don't have to do all this, you know," Nick says.

"We're not taking something you bought at the store, Carter."

Nick appropriates one end of Lance's cutting board, standing close enough to make Lance pricklingly aware of his body heat, with enough distance to give them both a little bit of elbow room.

"It makes a weird kind of sense, I suppose?" he finally says as he slices. "I mean ... do you ever think about recording again? Do you want to?"

"I ... what?" Lance says, putting down his knife. "You ... I know you're not asking me to join your group."

"No," Nick says, nudging him with an elbow. "But, you know. Do you ever miss it? You used to talk about it a lot. I mean, you guys could do a four-man thing, too. You'd even still have a fuller sound than we do."

It almost looks like it doesn't hurt him to admit that, Lance thinks.

"I ... no," is what he says.

Of course he's thought about it, but it's not something he wants to talk about, particularly with Nick, who's still singing with his guys. It's not something JC or Chris will consider, not without Justin, and Lance isn't willing to push any further with them.

It's too late, now, anyway.

"No," he says again, falling back on JC's words. "It wouldn't be ... right. Not with just four of us."

"Yeah, that's what AJ says JC said." Nick's poking at his piles of chopped greens, shoving them around on the cutting board. "But ... I mean, if they've made you think that, what do you think about me and Brian and AJ and Howie?"

"They haven't _made_ me think anything," Lance says, carefully, stepping back and wiping a hand on his shorts. "Can we not talk about this?"

"Yeah, I just ... Sorry. Where do these go? In here?"

"Not yet. Wait a minute." Lance scrapes the tomatoes into the bowl and tries to ignore the way Nick's fidgeting uncomfortably behind him. "There's a jar of roasted peppers in the fridge. Can you get them out? Oh, hey. And the feta while you're in there."

He's tossing pasta and tomatoes and asparagus together when Nick comes back with the peppers and cheese, still looking downcast.

"Look," Lance says, taking the package of feta from him. "What do you want me to say? That the whole thing was stupid and it sucked and it pissed me off and I blamed Justin, because he left me ... left _us_ ... because he left us hanging? I've got a copy of my book you can read if you want to hear it again. I'm over it. Everything's cool. I just don't want to have to defend the whole thing. So. Can we just not do this? Please? I've got pasta salad to worry about. Slice those up for me."

"I wish you'd stop worrying about this so much," Nick says, grimacing as he tries to open the jar of red peppers. "It doesn't have to be this big ...." he waves his hands around, "... deal. I can't get this open. Where's a spoon?"

"We're _not_ taking something you bought at the store," Lance says. "Where's the jar opener?"

"I don't know. Where's a spoon?"

"Just use a clean one," Lance says, crumbling cheese over the bowl and shifting to let Nick get a teaspoon out of the drawer at his hip.

"In there?" Nick asks, gesturing, once he's popped the lid and sliced some of the peppers.

"Yeah," Lance says, pushing everything into the bowl as Nick tips the cutting board over it.

Their fingers slide together in the olive oil from the peppers, and Nick traces a finger over Lance's knuckles. He raises an eyebrow when Lance looks up at him.

"Stop that," Lance says, corners of his mouth quirking. "Go get me the dressing out of that bag over there. Wash your hands first!"

Nick starts laughing when he pulls out the bottle of dressing.

"Oh, we can't take anything from the store but you're going to cheat and use a bottle of Italian dressing you got from the store to make your fancy-schmancey pasta salad?" he says, giggling.

"Shut up, Carter," Lance says, trapped wrist-deep in pasta. It's the only thing saving Nick from a smack at this point, he's pretty sure.

"I know, I know," Nick says, setting down the bottle on the counter beside Lance. "We're not taking anything I bought from the store. I really just wish you'd _stop worrying_ so much, you know?"

He combs his fingers through Lance hair, cups his cheek and tries to smooth out the furrow between Lance's brows with his thumb before leaning in and kissing him. Lance flails around with one slick hand, only just stopping himself from wrapping it around Nick's wrist as Nick licks into his mouth.

"Why are you so laid back about this?" he asks, when Nick pulls away. "I mean, all the guys are going to know about us after this. Not just your guys. Mine, too. You aren't concerned at all? About what they're going to think?"

There's an unreadable look on Nick's face as he steps back - it's one Lance has seen before, but he can't quite place it - and he turns to look out the French doors, past the pool, back turned to Lance.

"Why is that such a problem for you?" he asks, finally, as Lance tries to wash dressing off his hands. "I just ... I don't see why it's such a problem, them knowing we're together?"

"I don't ... It's not a problem for _me_," Lance says, poking in the bowl with a fork. "I just want to be sure you're OK with it. And here, taste this."

Nick narrows his eyes at the forkful of pasta salad but opens his mouth obediently, screwing his face up as he chews.

"What?" Lance says. "No. It's not bad, is it?"

"I think I need to try to some more to be sure," Nick says, taking the fork from him. "Like, maybe a bowl of it. Just to be absolutely positive. Maybe two."

 

•••

 

Lance sits with the Boys on a plane to Malaysia, but there are too many other people for him and Nick to do anything except behave themselves. Mostly.

"I'm the boyfriend of the star," he says in response to AJ's raised eyebrow when he appears at the terminal, and Brian has a sudden coughing fit.

It's not true - well, not entirely. Lance and Joey are scheduled for some of their star-dancing schtick as emcees during part of the benefit music festival, so he's not just there as Nick's secret arm candy, but Nick buries his nose in Lance's neck, and Lance thinks he can feel Nick's smile against his skin before he almost bowls both of them over, staggering and stumbling.

Howie shows up late and disheveled, and Nick and AJ flutter their eyelashes at him and swoon, and AJ says "Oh, _Howard_" in a gravely sex voice and leans his head on Howie's shoulder before Howie pushes him off, laughing, and calls him a dumbass. Nick bounces over to Brian, and Lance stands with his hands in his pockets, grin in place, feeling Howie's gaze heavy between his shoulder blades and thinking about Ford.

Ford always felt like Stacey's first real boyfriend to Lance, because he was already her boyfriend when she brought him home with her, the first time any of the family met him. He wasn't like all the boyfriends before that, who Lance and his parents already knew because they were Stacey's lab partner or her best friend's boyfriend's best friend or even because they were guys Lance's mom had taught math to in eighth grade. Ford wasn't like the guys who already had a space and a role and suddenly had to be shifted into this new space that never seemed quite real because they never quite fit. Ford was a grown-up boyfriend, someone their family had never seen shoot soda out of his nose at Stacey's twelfth birthday party or take out one of the bushes beside the garage because he was just getting the hang of driving. So it was no surprise to Lance that Ford was the one Stacey ended up keeping.

The thought doesn't make Lance feel very comfortable right now, really. He's afraid he's Stevie Lane in this scenario - Stevie, who'd never managed to graduate up to Steve, even in high school, and who always had to endure gentle jibes from Lance's mom about his math skills when he came over to pick Stacey up on Saturday nights.

On the plane, Nick falls over on Lance's shoulder, finally worn out. They're barely in the air before he's asleep, and Brian puts a blanket over him, gives Lance a smile. Lance ignores Howie's assessing gaze. Mostly.

He's able to hook his pinkie around Nick's under cover of the blanket where it falls over his thigh.

Later, he wakes up to find Nick gone. He asks the flight attendant for a Diet Coke before he stands up and stretches and wanders to the front of the plane. Nick's hanging outside the bathroom, and Lance hopes he isn't going to get asked to join the mile-high club, not in an airplane toilet, because, ew. The smell in those things is way too gross. He wouldn't mind on a charter plane, and he resolutely does not think about the pictures he's seen of the bed on that plane the Boys used for the Around the World junket, or about the opportunities it would have presented.

As he reaches the front of the plane, he realizes Nick's not hanging outside the bathroom - he's hanging outside the galley, talking to a flight attendant who's poking through one of the bins on the wall, used plastic cups and empty soda cans neglected on the counter beside her. His voice is low and sweet, a cajoling cadence Lance recognizes from stolen kisses, always accompanied by guileless eyes and a hint of wickedness to his grin. The flight attendant - she's young, Lance notices, and tiny, with a mass of dark hair swept up and pinned in a simple, elegant twist - throws back her head and laughs at something Nick's said, too low for Lance to make out the words, and Nick cups her elbow as she puts her hand on his arm, shaking her head in a way Lance knows means "yes," because really, who can say "no" to Nick when he looks at you like that?

Lance nods at him, squeezes into the bathroom, locks the door. He can hear the murmur of the flight attendant's voice and Nick's answering laugh. "I know, right?" he hears Nick say, and he studies himself in the mirror, telling himself he's pathetic. It's just image - even if Nick's always been more about the girls than the boys, Lance and Howie notwithstanding. But really, if Lance wanted to deal with this particular insecurity, there's always JC and his hit-or-miss sexuality. He smiles fiercely and toothily into the mirror and tells himself he won't spill his drink on this particular flygirl.

When he gets back to his seat, Nick's stolen the window view, so Lance steals Nick's blanket, wrapping it around himself and closing his eyes as if he's going back to sleep. He feels Nick's fingers curl around his where he's clutching the blanket, pressing something into his palm, and when he opens his eyes and looks down, it's an extra package of peanuts, honey roasted.

He slides it into his pocket and curls up facing Nick, knee pressed into one solid thigh, tucked close enough to breath in the fading scent of laundry detergent on Nick's Goonies T-shirt.

He's supposed to eat with Joe and Kelly as soon as he lands and can get a shower; Joey meets him at the airport, where Nick and the Boys get whisked off to the venue to take an early look at where they'll be performing. For a while, it felt strange to be hauling his luggage through airports with Joey the only other guy as his side. Now, it feels normal. What's strange is to be hauling his baggage through an airport with Joey at his side and not have his goddaughter clinging to one of his hands, taking up most of his attention.

In the cab, he finds himself worrying the small foil bag of peanuts in his pocket, and he pulls it out and smoothes the crumpled package absently as Joey tells him about dinner last night, which involved some kind of impromptu mambo and a near disaster with an entree that left Kym mortified and Kelly rolling her eyes.

"You gonna eat that?" Joey asks, and Lance looks down at the package, half-surprised.

"Yeah? I guess."

"Won't be hungry later."

"Thanks, dad," Lance says.

What he's thinking is, maybe that's OK.

 

•••

 

Lance doesn't even bother to look at the display when his phone rings, he just flips it open.

"Hi, JC," he says.

"Let me talk to Joey," JC says.

"If you wanted to spend the day with us, you could have just come along, you know," Lance says before handing the phone across the front seat to Joe.

So far, JC has called, like, 50 times, today - OK, no, that's an exaggeration, Lance supposes, but not much of one. He called when they were at lunch, just after the salsa and chips were finished but before the fully-loaded cheeseburgers could get there. He called while Joey and Nick were battling it out at Action Girlz Racing on the Wii display at Toys R Us and again while they were battling it out over the last Max Steel action figure - they claimed it was for Briahna or Baylee, but Lance doesn't really believe either of them. The phone buzzed in Lance's pocket, set on silent mode, while they were in the movie theater, Joey digging his elbow into Lance's ribs and giggling like a 12-year-old girl while Nick's thumb stroked slow patterns on the back of Lance's hand in the dark, and Lance didn't even bother to answer that time. Supposedly, JC was set to work on something with AJ today, something the Boys wanted to switch up on a track for the album, but Lance doesn't know how they could have possibly got anything done when JC's been on the phone half the time.

"So, how's that song coming, Jayce?" Joey asks, trying to steer and talk at the same time, and Nick throws a theatric hand over his eyes in the back seat. "No, we're just pulling into the driveway right now. Yeah, I can pick some up for you on my way over. No, it's fine. Just let me drop these guys off. Yeah. Like, two minutes. Bye."

"What now?" Lance says.

"Don't ask," Joey says, shaking his head as he tosses the phone back to Lance and puts both hands on the wheel for one of the sharp curves in Lance's winding drive. "It's just better that way."

He gets out of the car long enough to pull Lance close and promise he'll call when he gets back to Orlando, but he refuses to come back in; he's already got his stuff loaded in the trunk of the rental car for that night's flight

"No, hey, come back for dinner," Lance says, into his shoulder, tilting his head as Joey cups a big hand around the back of his neck.

"Yeah, well," Joey says, letting go. "Let's see how things go over at JC's. I'll give you a call, OK? C'mere, kid."

He grabs Nick and lays a kiss on both of his cheeks before lifting him off the ground in a bear hug.

"Hey, what ... no, man ... _quit it_," Nick says, smacking at Joey's hands and rescuing his hard-won action figure at the last minute.

"Always been sneaky, like that," Joey tells Lance, before he pulls him into a last hug. "You good?" he says, low in Lance's ear.

"Yeah," Lance says, nodding as Joey ducks his head to make eye contact. "Yeah, I think I am."

It's been a good day, he thinks - a chance to see Joe while he's out here filming some promo spots for E! red carpet stuff, a chance to get outside the house with Nick, buffered by Joey's presence, without worrying about who might be watching, what they might be seeing. Maybe ... maybe he should talk to JC about going out to dinner sometime, something with AJ along, too, some space for both he and Nick to breathe. Maybe Jamie-Lynn or Shannon ... but no, he thinks. They're both too well-known as past beards, at this point - he might as well hang a sign around Nick's neck and tape a bullseye to his back.

It's a lot quieter once Joey's back in his rental car and gone.

"Baylee?" Lance says, looking pointedly at the package in Nick's hands as he opens the door. "I don't believe that for a minute, Carter."

"Would I lie to you?" Nick asks, laughing, making the action-figure dance. "Swear to God, that's what ... What? What's wrong?"

He runs into Lance as Lance stops short in the entryway. Nick slings an arm over his shoulders, across his chest, presses up against his back, but Lance hardly notices, his skin prickling. Something's wrong, he can tell. Something's ... off.

"Somebody's been in here," he says.

Nick goes quiet against him.

"Are you sure?" he asks, low. "How do you know?"

"I don't ..." Lance shakes his head in frustration. "I can't tell what it is, I just _know_."

He expects Nick to be skeptical, but his arm tightens, and when Lance turns his head, Nick's chewing on his bottom lip with that worried, considering look he gets sometimes.

"Call the cops?" he asks.

"I don't ..." Lance untangles himself from Nick's grasp and steps carefully into the dining room, looking around. There's something ... "Do you smell that?"

"What?"

"I think it's ... garlic?"

"What?" Nick says, voice still low but now incredulous. "You think someone broke in and _cooked_ for us?"

"Maybe it was somebody I know?" Lance says, considering, now that he's past the immediate freakout of someone in the house, someone maybe upstairs in the bedroom where he and Nick had sex last night, in the family room where Nick fell asleep in front of the TV two days ago with his head in Lance's lap, Lance's fingers tangled in his hair.

There are plenty of people who know or could guess his security code, now that he thinks about it - Jamie-Lynn or Beth or Ben - so, OK, someone's been in his house, but it's probably someone he knows. He probably ought to be glad one of them hasn't dropped off another dog for him to adopt. Which reminds him ...

"Dingo?" he calls. "Foster?"

There's a thud somewhere above his head, quickly followed by another, and then the sound of nails clickety-clacking across wood floor. Eventually a couple of noses poke through the metal railings of the upstairs landing.

"You're so lazy you couldn't even come say 'Hello?'" Lance says accusingly.

Foster bounds down the stairs to stick her nose in Lance's hand, back end swaying as her tail wags. Dingo's stretching, still on the upstairs landing, when Nick pushes open the door that leads to the kitchen.

"Hey, Lance," he says. "You should come look at this."

"What?" Lance says, warily, standing up from his crouch, giving Foster's ears a last good scratch.

Someone has broken into Lance's house and cooked for them.

He looks over at Nick, who's still leaning in the doorway with one hand on the doorjamb, then back at the covered dishes on the table in the breakfast nook, at the candle, the bud vase with a single red rose. He looks at Nick again, raising his hands, palms up.

"Dude, I don't know," he says, venturing further into the room. "We got visited by the romance fairy?"

At least whoever did it cleaned up the pots and pans when they were done.

"A romance fairy in capri pants, I bet," Nick says, eyeing a bottle of wine, white, chilled, open to breath.

Yeah, this probably is why JC was calling all day, Lance figures, eyeing the bottle. There's a sign propped up beside it that says "SANGRIA!!" with an arrow pointing to the fridge. The smiley face at the bottom of the exclamation points looks like AJ's work, Nick says, peering at the squiggly goatee it's got. There's a lighter laying by one corner of the note, and Nick picks it up, looks at Lance and shrugs, moving to light the candle in the middle of the table. When Lance opens the refrigerator door and pokes around, he finds a pitcher labeled "SHERRY COCKTAIL!! DRINK WITH SHRIMP (and rice cakes)" in a couple of different hands next to the pitcher labeled "SANGRIA" - without the exclamation points, this time - and "(WITH BBQ COSTILLAS)."

"Costillas?" he asks Nick, who starts lifting lids.

"Tapas," he says, looking up at Lance before he goes back to inspecting the food. "Um. Some kind of mini rice cakes? Like, steamed rice. With something green in them? Shrimp. Ooo! Olives! Mini barbecued ribs?" The last bit is kind of muffled through the olives in his mouth.

"Barbecued costillas," Lance hazards.

"And some kind of bread with a ... mushroom spread on it?" Nick looks up again. "They must have been here all day."

"I don't even ..." Lance spreads his hands again and looks at Nick.

"So, I guess maybe this means they approve?" Nick says and grins at him.

The green stuff in the rice cakes turns out to be artichoke, and there's also cheese in the middle of them, and Nick swallows a little bit hard a couple of times when they find the note on the plate that says "(brian and leigh's recipe)." The shrimp are garlicky and buttery, and Lance maybe draws out eating them, watching Nick watching him suck his fingers clean as they peel the tails away from the meat. The both agree beer would have been better with the costillas.

"Here," Nick says, holding out a bit of bread he's swiped through the spicy sauce.

Lance wipes a smear of the sauce off Nick's bottom lip with his thumb as he chews, before he sits back in his chair, looking out over the patio and the pool and the last smudges of smoggy pink on the horizon over Beverly Hills. He wonders if he's making a mistake, thinking about getting out of L.A., wonders if it would make things like this better or worse.

"What?" Nick asks him. "You've got that thinkin' look."

He's put olives on the ends of his fingers, and he waves two of them at Lance.

"Just thinkin' about what happens if this show comes together," Lance says, nabbing one of the olives.

"_Chicago_?"

"Yeah."

"They're gonna be able to switch up the arrangement for your voice?"

"Yeah."

"Looks pretty certain."

"Yeah." Lance pushes his plate aside, swallowing his olive despite the sudden knot in his stomach.

"Gonna have to find a place in New York."

"Yeah."

"You should talk to Kevin, you know." Nick leans forward, elbows on the table. "He did that run as Billy in London."

Lance tilts his head, studying Nick, trying to figure out if he's serious, wondering if he realizes that Kevin Richardson will never not be vaguely terrifying as long as Lance is fucking Nick, scary in a way Lance never took seriously before.

"You ready for it?" Nick asks, poking around in the pile of discarded tails like there might be a forgotten shrimp at the bottom.

"Dude. George Hamilton managed it, and did you see his _Dancing With the Stars_ performance?"

Lance doesn't say what he's really thinking, which is that he's pretty fucking terrified. He'd let someone pull out all of his toenails before he'd admit that. It won't be the first time in his life he'll walk onto a stage completely fucking terrified, and it won't be the first time nobody will know it, either.

"Don't hate on old people, Bass," Nick says, poking him in the forehead.

"Stop that," Lance smacks at Nick's hand and reaches around to steal a couple of his remaining olives. "You guys are going to be finishing up the album soon, huh?"

"Yeah," Nick says, pushing himself up and taking some of the dishes over to the sink to run water over them.

"Hey," Lance says, coming over to put his arms around Nick's waist. He stands on his toes, but Nick's still just too tall for Lance to hook his chin over a shoulder. "You're gonna be doing some promo in New York, right?"

"Yeah," Nick turns off the water and turns around in Lance's arms, wiping his fingers on the seat of his pants before he brings his hands up to Lance's face, holding him still to kiss him.

Lance's phone buzzes again that night, and he ignores it. The next morning, there's a text from Joey:

DINNER 2NITE? LOL

 

•••

 

Lance knows it's stupid, but he hates Nick's haircut.

It's not a bad haircut; it's not even a new haircut. It's one Nick's had before; it's one _Lance_ has had before - vaguely out of control in a stylishly tousled sort of way, heavy on the product, shorter and spiker on top than the blond mop Nick let grow without much thought while he was spending time in rehearsal and the studio.

Lance liked the longer hair. He liked combing his fingers through it while Nick slept, head on Lance's lap or Lance's chest; he liked the chance to brush it out of Nick's eyes and lean in to steal a kiss; he liked the way it felt in his hands when Nick was on his knees or Lance was on his back.

Still, this is not really about the hair, and Lance knows that, too. It's about post-production and preliminary publicity, it's about plans for promotion and appearances, it's about more cameras and more attention and more eyes on Nick once this album comes out. It's about Lance being even more careful about keeping his hands to himself.

Lance eyes the haircut from across the kitchen and tells himself he's being stupid.

Knowing it doesn't make it any better.

"I think maybe you want to do this?" Nick says, looking up from the sink where he's trying to peel a batch of hard-boiled eggs.

"What did those eggs ever do to you?" Lance asks, peering at the three misshapen examples of Nick's handiwork already sitting on a plate.

"The shells keep sticking," Nick complains, hooking his chin over Lance's shoulder to watch as Lance pokes gingerly at the eggs.

"Go ... do something else," Lance tells him.

"Hey," Nick says, cupping a hand around Lance's neck and stroking a thumb along his jawline. "Are you OK? You seem kinda' ... weird today."

I hate your haircut, Lance thinks.

"It's nothing," he says, stepping away from Nick. He reaches into the sink for the pot with the rest of the eggs to try making the move look less obvious. "Just, stupid stuff. Getting the house closed up. Things people are writing about the show."

None of that's a lie, exactly. Lance feels vaguely unsettled, one foot already out the door and in New York, one still here in L.A. Being called a "casting stunt," by a theater critic for a major newspaper chain didn't help, either.

"What are people saying about the show?" asks a voice from the open French doors.

"That I am going to bring down a role whose fine tradition has been upheld by George Hamilton and both Dukes of Hazzard," Lance says, grinning at Lacey.

"Oh, they don't know what they're talking about," she says, making a face before she throws her arms around his neck so he can pick her up and swing her around. "When do we fry the turkey, anyway?"

"Twenty minutes or so," Lance says. "Derek and Shannon are already outside, if you want to go find them."

She smacks a kiss on his cheek and runs off. Nick blinks after her.

"She's smaller than I expected," he says.

"You don't suppose she knows anything about peeling eggs?" Lance asks as a huge chunk of egg white comes off along with a piece of shell.

"I told you," Nick says mildly.

He runs a hand through Lance's hair, tugging a little bit at the nape of his neck, and leans in - probably to press a kiss to Lance's temple - but Lance ducks away.

"Can you go ahead and start ... deviling?" he says. "Deviling? Is that a verb?"

Nick's looking at him, head tilted, slight furrow between his brows, like he's trying to work out some kind of problem, but Lance looks down and concentrates on his eggs. When Nick moves away, Lance can track his progress by sound around the kitchen - a bowl from the cupboard, knife and fork from a drawer. He comes back and wordlessly starts hacking eggs in half, scooping out the yolks and mashing them. It doesn't take him long to catch up to Lance.

"What do we need for these?" he asks, looking down at the bowl of powdery yellow. "Mustard, mayo ..."

"Vinegar," Lance says.

"Relish ..."

"Not relish," Lance says, rinsing off the last egg and setting it on the plate.

"What? Yes, relish."

"OK, no," Lance says, wrinkling his nose. "That's just ... No."

"Deviled eggs are supposed to have relish in them," Nick says.

"I don't know who told you that, but no."

"Well, you're wrong, but OK, fine," Nick says, dumping mayonnaise in the bowl with the egg yolks.

"I'm not wrong, but good," Lance says.

"Why do you do this?" Nick asks, throwing his spoon down on the counter. "Why do you do this every time?"

"What?" Lance asks, baffled. "What are you even talking about?"

"You do this, all the time, when we're going out together or doing things together or just ... just being _seen_ together." Nick says. "It's fine when we're here, when we're alone, behind closed doors - then you don't have any problem bein' with me, but you don't want anybody to see us together - you didn't even want our _friends_ to know we're together. What the hell, Lance? Why do you always pick a fight or make things miserable so that we'll, I don't know, cancel our plans or stay away from each other any time it's not just us, here? Why do you _do_ that?"

Lance stares at him for a minute, mouth hanging open, before he can put together any kind of counter argument.

"That's not true!" he says, finally. It's not a very good counter argument, he knows, but he thinks he deserves a little bit of slack, because really, where the hell did this come from?

"Yes, it _is_," Nick says, low, vicious.

"I flew to _Southeast Asia_ with you," Lance says icily, setting down the plate he's holding with a clatter. "I spent the entire _day_ out with you when Joey was here. I went out to dinner with you. Or does that not _count_?"

"Oh my god," Nick says, flailing his arms. "You ... You did it before AJ's cookout. You spend hours on your computer, worrying that someone, somewhere, is saying something about us being together. You went out to dinner with me, sure, and then you worried the entire time that someone was going to see you with me. You made me take you out the _back door_ because you were so worried about Reichen seeing you with me ... "

"What the fuck, Carter? That didn't have anything to do with you. It wouldn't have mattered who I was with."

That ... came out kind of the wrong way, Lance thinks. It sounded kind of ... bad. He can tell it didn't sound bad to just him, because Nick's flushed now, and his lips are pressed together in that thin line that's so telling.

"Maybe if it didn't matter if it was me or not, maybe I shouldn't have come back, right?" he says. "If it doesn't matter if it's me, maybe I should just leave, now. I mean, what difference would it make? Maybe if I'm out of the picture, you can find somebody you're not ashamed to be seen with."

He's up in Lance's face by this time, but there's no way Lance is backing down after that.

"How can you say that? We're seen with each other all the time," he says, angry. "Have you not heard the rumors that people are talkin' about? Are you missing what they're startin' to say about you? Or do you think you're ready for that talk with your mother _now_?"

"Do not ... do _not_ bring my mother into this." Nick's face has gone white.

"Nick." It's AJ's voice, from the doorway out to the back patio, and Nick breaks eye contact first, looking over as AJ walks into the kitchen. "Nick, hey. What's goin' on?"

"Don't," Nick says, shoving away the hand AJ tries to lay on his arm.

"Hey, bro, everything's cool," AJ says, stepping back with his hands up. "It's just, Shannon came and got me, she was coming in here to get another drink, and you know, I don't think you two should be worrying the ladies like that."

Nick looks away from both of them, rubbing a hand over his eyes, and then he turns around and walks out the door. Lance turns to AJ, mouth open, because really, what the hell was that about?

"Just leave him alone." AJ makes a small move, as if he's going to touch Lance this time, before pulling back. "You have to leave him alone when he gets like this."

"Yeah, well, you don't have anything to worry about, now," Lance says, turning around abruptly and banging a couple of empty pots into the sink. "It looks like we'll probably be leaving each other alone for good."

"He'll be back, Lance," AJ says. "He might leave, but he'll always come back."

Lance thinks he feels a light touch on his shoulder before AJ turns around and walks outside.

Everything kind of sucks after that. Lance laughs and pours drinks and plays host, but there's a knot in his stomach and his throat feels tight and not even lowering the turkey into the deep-fryer can make him feel better. JC keeps staring at him from under a tree, barefoot and cross-legged and artificially serene, prickling the hair on the back of Lance's neck. If he's going to smoke up before coming to Lance's Thanksgiving dinner, the least he could do is share, Lance thinks balefully. Shannon's keeping a narrowed eye on Nick, even as Derek leans over to whisper something in her ear. Nick, himself, has taken up residence under a tree adjoining JC's, far enough away to avoid conversation but close enough that AJ can move easily from one of them to the other; Nick's busy making sure the patch of lawn in front of him is completely grass-free, pulling up stalks one by one and shredding each thoroughly before moving on to the next.

"Stop that," Lance says, sliding onto the bench beside Shannon and nudging her with a shoulder, figuring she's the only one of them he can do anything about.

"What was that about?" she asks.

"Nothing. It was an argument. It was the stupidest argument ever, but ... It's fine."

"Lance ..."

"It's _fine_."

It's really, really not fine.

Lance is standing in the kitchen, dragging a fork listlessly through the leftover mashed potatoes when Nick comes in.

"I'm gonna go stay at AJ's tonight, I think," Nick says, sounding subdued.

"OK," Lance says, not looking up.

"Will you be OK, here?" Nick asks. "I know I was going to help clean up, and maybe help get some stuff done tomorrow before you leave for New York next week, I can come back in the morning if you need me to ..."

"It's fine," Lance says. "There's not that much left to do, anyway."

"OK."

"OK."

Nick stands there for a minute.

"Lance ..."

Lance makes the mistake of looking up, and then he feels even worse, because really, he thinks, being mean to Nick Carter is like kicking a puppy - a big dumb puppy that doesn't even know what it's done wrong. The thought actually makes him feel vaguely pissed off again. He thinks he deserves some time to be mad, here, without having to feel guilty about it. They were arguing over deviled eggs and then out of nowhere, Lance is somehow the worst boyfriend in the world?

"I'm just ... I'm gonna go ahead and go, then," Nick says, gesturing at the door.

He leans in like he's going to kiss Lance but stops like he's thought better of it, before he turns and leaves.

"I had the stupidest fight in the world tonight," Lance tells Jamie-Lynn five drinks later, looking up at her from where he's lying with his head in her lap.

"Oh, honey, I'm sure you'll have stupider ones," she says, petting him. "What did you do?"

They've moved inside, the night air cool enough to drive them indoors, and Lance took the opportunity to light a fire in the living room, even though it wasn't really going to be _that_ cold. He can turn on the air-conditioning if it gets too warm, he figures. He was kind of planning on making out with Nick in front of the fire, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen tonight.

Jamie-Lynn laughs.

"What?" Lance asks.

"You do realize you said that out loud?" Derek asks from the other end of the couch. "That making-out thing."

"It wasn't so much the saying it out loud as the tone," Jamie-Lynn says. "And the face you made."

"It was a good idea," Lance insists. "Except now he's mad at me. He thinks I'm ashamed of him because I won't be seen in public with him. Also, I wouldn't let him put relish in the deviled eggs."

"You are kind of psychotic about not being seen with him," she says.

"It's for his own good!"

"I get that," she says, patting him on the head again. "I do. It's not like we weren't all a little psycho about protecting you, you know. You even mentioned it after, how weird we all were about it."

After everyone else leaves, Lance finally finds JC, upstairs in his bedroom, reading, leaning back against the headboard, glass of wine in hand.

"Your taste in books is awful," JC says, looking up to study Lance where he's propped himself in the doorway.

"What's that one about, anyway?" Lance asks, squinting at it from across the room. "And how many is that you've had? I think you need to stay here, tonight."

"Where's your beau?" JC asks, setting down the book to upend the last of his wine bottle into the glass.

"Who even uses that word?" Lance makes a face. "And he's staying at AJ's tonight."

"I thought that kid had a place of his own out here." JC looks back at Lance and laughs.

"What?"

"Nothing. You've just got that same look you get when someone puts you in a position where you feel like you have to defend Justin."

"Shut up," Lance says, sprawling across the foot of the bed. He picks at a cuticle for a long, silent minute. "Anyway, apparently he never stayed on his own bus, either."

"Well, I can't stay," JC says. "I've got an early meeting."

"Oh." Lance rolls his head back on the mattress to study the ceiling. He can't imagine who JC would have an early appointment with, at this point, but OK.

"You're as bad about being alone as he is, aren't you?" JC kicks Lance's foot gently.

Lance opens his mouth, then closes it. Shrugs. What's he going to say? There's a reason he has a house with three bedrooms, two family rooms and a fully tricked-out poolhouse, even though he's only one person, and it's not just because of the gate. Extra people around him have always meant security, in any number of ways. He's good at hiding in the background. What was a necessity so long has just become habit.

"You have to help me set that clock in the guest room," JC says, setting his wineglass on the floor and scooting around to lay with his head on Lance's stomach. He props his bare feet on top of the headboard. "I swear I'm going to throw it through the window if it goes off at 3 a.m. again."

"Dude, I have no idea how to set that clock," Lance says, combing his fingers through JC's hair. "Just bunk in with me. It'll be like a slumber party."

"You gonna paint my toenails?" JC says, eyes closed, smiling.

 

•••

 

Lance listens to Nick's message four times after he finds the Ice Blue Island Twist mix, hits "4" three times in a row on his cellphone voicemail, repeat repeat repeat. He's making his final packing run through the kitchen - at this late stage, that pretty much means tossing out stuff that's only going to go bad, once he's out of town - when his fingers slide over the Kool-Aid packet jammed half-behind one of the shelves in his pantry, sugary crap that he never would have bought on his own, not unless there was going to be vodka and shot glasses and irony involved.

"So. Hi," Nick's voice says, low, with a curious hollow echoing sound to it, like he's snuck away to the bathroom or something and cupped his hand over his phone to call. "I don't know what's going on, exactly, but I just wanted to say, you know, I'm sorry about last night. Well, tonight, I guess, but it's past midnight by now. And you probably won't get this until the morning anyway - I was hoping you'd be awake, but I know you have to be tired, so. I couldn't sleep, and I was thinking about you, and I thought I'd try calling, at least. We're going to be in New York in about a week and a half, doing a photo shoot, and ... I don't know. You'll give me a call, right? I have to go, your voicemail is going to cut me off again, but I'll talk to you later, right? I ... Yeah. So. Call me. Please? Bye."

When he finally hangs up, Lance sits at the table in the breakfast nook, folding the top of the Kool-Aid package over and smoothing it out again, squinting at the sunlight that's reflecting off the water in the pool and somehow stabbing its way right into the hungover part of his brain, behind his eyes. He contemplates his phone. He thinks about calling his voicemail and listening to the message again.

He calls Chris, instead. He's running water into a plastic pitcher on top of the drink mix when Chris picks up.

"Lance Bass! What are you doing awake at this fine hour of noon on a holiday weekend!"

"I need help," Lance says, and Chris laughs at him. "No. Shut up a minute. Not help, so much, as ... advice."

"You realize I'm still going to charge you my regular hourly rate, even though you never actually take my advice?"

"Dude, seriously." Lance shuts off the water and worries his lower lip with his teeth, staring blankly out the window at the backyard cabana. "I think I might have fucked up."

"What? Impossible."

"Shut up."

"How can I offer you my fine advice if you don't want me to speak?"

"OK, maybe this was a mistake."

"No, come on, Lance," Chris's voice is abruptly serious, the same tone Lance remembers from drafty hallways and damp dressing rooms in Germany, encouragement mumbled in his ear after another stumbling showcase, counterpoint to JC's adamant tones talking down record company reps on the other side of doors. "Come on. Talk to me. What could you possibly have done that's so bad you're calling me for advice?"

Lance sighs and scrubs a hand over his face.

"So, Nick and I had this huge fight last night ..."

"No."

"Wait, what?" Lance says, thunking a glass down on the counter. "No? What do you mean, 'no?'"

"No, Lance," Chris sounds adamant. "Just, no. Nick and I hang out, I'm _his_ friend, too. You know that. You're not putting me in the middle of this."

"So, what? You hang out with him, and that takes priority over a dozen years of our relationship? Is that how it works?" Lance is abruptly angry, wondering what Chris already knows about "this," this thing he won't get in the middle of, whatever "this" has turned into, however long it's been building.

"Don't be an asshole, Bass," Chris doesn't sound mad, just matter-of-fact. "You knew I was his friend when you called me, you counted on it. It's the reason you called me in the first place, instead of Joey."

"That's not true."

"Don't lie, Lansten."

Lance considers hanging up.

"Come on," Chris cajoles.

"Dude, I just ..." Lance sighs and thumps a fist against his thigh. "I don't know what I'm doing here, and I was hoping you could help me out. Give me a little bit of insight."

"Lance, are you asking me if he likes you like _that_? What? Do you want me to pass him a note? Wait, I'll go get Taylor on the other line, I'm pretty sure she and the other middle-school girls have some experience with this."

"Oh, fuck you, too."

"Mmm, is that an offer?"

"Why did I call you?"

"Because you needed someone to tell you to man up and talk to Nick, yourself? What, are you scared? Seriously? Don't tell me Lance Bass is going to admit he's scared of something. Other than spiders, I mean, but I suppose that goes along with being a giant girl."

"Everybody else gets to be scared sometimes," Lance says, shoving his glass across the counter in a fit of petulance.

"If you're scared, think about how he feels."

"Chris, he doesn't have the fucking sense to be scared." Lance realizes he's yelling. "He doesn't seem to have any idea of what he's walking into. I'm trying to protect him."

"Oh, bullshit, Lance. He's a goddam grown-up. If he's decided this is what he wants to do, than it's his decision to make."

"And when he changes his mind and decides he can't hack it anymore, I'm the one who's going to end up ..." Lance trails off bitterly.

"Well, maybe he's the one you should be telling that to."

Lance sniffs and scrubs his nose with the sleeve of his T-shirt. Chris sits silent on his end of the connection for a minute.

"He's a good guy, Lance," he finally says.

"I hate you," Lance says, conversationally.

"Your words of love, they make me tremble with desire."

"Dude, seriously. You get women with lines like that?"

"Some days, kid, I think they just feel sorry for me."

Lance pours himself a glass of Kool-Aid after he hangs up, making a face. It still looks like freakin' Windex. He remembers Nick chasing him around the pool, trying to lick him with a blue tongue.

He gulps down the whole glass before he pulls his phone back out and texts Joey.

AM I AN ASSHOLE?

Ten minutes later, he's trying to hack out some cubes from the frozen mass in his broken ice maker - he can't find the icepick and has fallen back on using a butter knife - when his phone buzzes.

Y BUT I &lt; 3 U NEWAY

Fifteen seconds later, his phone buzzes again.

B DOES 2

Lance laughs in the middle of his empty kitchen, and it almost sounds normal.

 

•••

 

"It's not right," Lance tells his mother, eyeing his dish of macaroni suspiciously. "There's not enough, like, _stuff_ in it with the noodles."

He tucks the cellphone between his shoulder and his ear and fumbles in his back pocket for the index card - pink, with the recipe handwritten on it in his grandmother's careful, spidery script.

"You just need to add more milk," his mom tells him, and he squints at the card before checking the measuring cup he's been using.

"But that's not what the recipe says ..."

"Honey, I swear to you, it's going to turn out fine," she says, and he can hear pots clatter across the connection from Mississippi. "Just make sure to use all of the cheese, so it's not too runny, OK?"

"Oooo ... K?" Lance pokes at the noodles in their square glass dish, then scrubs his fingers against the side of his jeans. "You're _sure_ this is going to turn out OK?"

"How many times did I make this when you were growing up?" she asks, the sound of water running under her voice.

Lance thinks about family dinners around the dining room table with early winter darkness pressed to the windows and late Sunday lunches with cousins running around barefoot in the backyard in the March springtime sun. He eyes the dish and holds his breath and tips in more milk, until the noodles are swimming.

"If this turns out wrong, I'm calling you back and telling you how wrong it was," he says. "Just so you know."

She laughs at him, and that's when he hears the knock at the door.

"I have to go, Mom," he says, wiping both hands on a spare towel.

"Tell him hello, whoever he is," she says, and she sounds hesitant but sincere. "I'd ... like to meet him sometime, you know."

Lance almost thinks he'd like that, too, but he's not sure either his mother or Nick is ready for that. He's not sure he's really ready for that. He puts her off the same way he put off Joey for three months, insisting that it's nothing, really, dinner for a friend.

She laughs at him again.

"Lance, you called me and told me to send you your grandmother's homemade macaroni and cheese recipe. And whoever he is, he seems to have followed you to New York. Don't tell me there's nothing going on," Her voice has turned playfully - he thinks - menacing.

"Mom ..."

"Honey. I just ... if you're going to be getting really serious about someone ..."

"I really have to _go_, Mom. IloveyouI'llcallyoubye," he says, pulling the phone away from his ear even as he's still talking.

He can hear her sigh and yell "Don't forget the extra cheese," from her end, and he snaps the phone shut just as he opens the door. Nick's standing there in the hall, shifting from foot to foot with his hands shoved in his pockets, the fake fur collar of his jacket around his ears above his hunched shoulders.

"Hi," he says. "I thought maybe you'd stood me up?"

He smiles when he says it, but there's the hint of a question in his voice, and Lance has to grab him by the arm and pull him inside, has to stand on tiptoe to kiss him, hands clutching the front of Nick's sweater, mouth sliding across his lips, pressing into him like he could crawl inside him while Dingo and Foster yelp and jump up on both of them.

"Um. Hi," Nick says breathlessly, after, licking his lips, and his smile seems a little more genuine this time. He's got one hand buried in Lance's hair, and Lance can feel fingers tugging at the waistband of his jeans, sliding along his hip, not with any kind of real intent, just abstract petting motions.

"Welcome to my humble abode," he says, kicking the door shut behind them before he gestures magnanimously in a sweep of his arm that encompasses ... well, pretty much the entire place, other than the master bedroom and the bathroom. Lance is not unaware that this place is smaller than his poolhouse back in L.A.

Nick looks around, eyebrows raised.

"It's ... nice?" he says, and that's when the dogs finally take him down.

"You don't sound so sure about that, dude," Lance says, looking down at him where he's got one dog already draped across his lap, belly in the air. The other is standing on her hind legs, front paws on Nick's shoulder as she noses at his ear and washes his cheek.

"Oh, yeah, I know who's glad to see me," Nick leans down to whisper in Dingo's ear as Foster does a little tap dance on his back.

Lance kicks him in the thigh.

"Ow, hey!" He smacks at Lance's ankle, and Lance aims another kick at him, grabbing the wall to keep from falling over.

"And here I was, making dinner for you. I guess maybe I'll go see if Jeff is hungry."

"Who's Jeff?" Nick asks, looking up at Lance, eyes narrowed.

Lance has to snort back a laugh.

"Jeff's my neighbor across the hall. He likes to tell me about his years 'treading the boards,' he calls it. He also likes to look at my ass." Lance shrugs, affecting nonchalance. "I mean, it's the least I can do, right? Have you seen my ass?"

"You're all heart, Bass."

"I know," Lance says, folding his arms across his chest and leaning against the inside of the door. "That's why I'm making you dinner. Even though you hate my new apartment."

"What?" Nick sputters. "I like it. It just seems kind of ... small for you. And empty?"

"Are you calling me ostentatious or somethin'?"

"Do you even know what that word means?"

"Hey, I've had a lot of people use that word about my last house. I read the Internet. And anyway, those are genuine original restored hardwood floors you've got your ass planted on. This is a _historic_ brownstone."

"Why's it historic?" Nick asks, shrugging off his jacket and leaving it on top of the duffle he kicked inside the door right after Lance grabbed him. Foster wanders over to nose through the jacket's folds and into the pockets.

"Uh. Because it's old?"

If Lance is going to be honest, he doesn't know exactly why the building's historic. He supposes something historic happened here. Or maybe it's just because it's so old and still standing. All he knows is that it has an adequate security system, and it allows dogs, and it's close enough that it doesn't take forever to get to and from the theater. It's in an area just seedy enough that Joey pronounced it "picturesque," and Lance figures that'll be a cool description to use in interviews. It'll make him sound, like, bohemian, or something. La vie boheme, and all that, right? Plus, he'd kind of fallen in love with the way the sunlight slanted across the hardwood floors in the afternoon - JC said it had fabulous north light and went on about something artistic, but really, it just made Lance think of the wide windows and airy rooms of the L.A. house in a way few New York apartments seemed able. A last gasp of autumn sunshine had poured through the windows and warmed his shins and his toes as he stood there, staring blankly out at the city from the middle of an empty room, thinking about one Sunday morning in L.A. when Nick refused to get out of bed and Lance opened the windows and pretended to read the business section of the paper, sitting with Nick's head on his thigh, smog-softened rays of light tracing across his hands and gilding Nick's hair, the sheets pooled around them.

He supposes this place is still kind of empty, though. He didn't bring a lot with him, left most of his stuff in storage or packed away at the L.A. house, flew across the country with nothing more than what he could pack in four suitcases and a carry-on - some clothes, a few pictures, his laptop, the stuffed Grinch that Briahna gave him two Christmases ago and an old, crocheted afghan his grandmother made for him when he first left home for Orlando, a rusty red thing that he'd kept in one of the guest room closets in L.A. He's thrown it across the arm of his new, squashy brown sofa, and he's got an empty bookcase that JC told him he could only fill up as he read the books. The floor in the living room area is still kind of bare - he's going to have to do something about that, because restored hardwood is frickin' cold in December in New York. He's been buying kitchen stuff as he goes along; he stopped by the store on his way home from rehearsal this evening to buy the baking dish he'd need ... which reminds him.

"Dude, you can stay in the foyer if you want, but I'm gonna go, you know. Finish dinner."

He can hear Nick poking around in the bathroom and probably checking out the bedrooms as he layers the last of the cheese on top of his macaroni; Nick sticks his head in the kitchen to ask if it's OK to turn on the TV before Lance can get the dish in the oven. Lance follows him back to the main living area and digs around in the sofa cushions for the remote; when he hands it over, Nick takes it from him then folds his fingers around Lance's and pulls him down, half on his lap, half sprawled across the sofa.

"Aggkh," Lance says, wiggling around to get his ass comfortably situated between Nick's thigh and the arm of the sofa. "No. I have to put dinner in the oven, man."

He only barely stops himself from making another half-strangled noise, because, wow. Where did that come from? He's not sure whether to wrap his sudden spasm of domesticity around himself like a snuggly blanket or to punch himself in the face, because all he needs now is an apron and some pearls, right? He's pretty sure he's getting in way too deep, especially with the elephant that's in the closet of this relationship.

Sooner or later, he thinks, watching his fingers picking at the sleeve of Nick's sweater. Sooner or later, Nick's going to get tired of the rumors and the innuendo and the gossip that's circulating about the pair of them. Lance isn't sure why it hasn't happened yet, but he needs to stop pretending this is something that's going to last and just enjoy what he's got.

"Hey," Nick says, nudging his knee, and Lance looks up to big eyes. "No green-bean casserole, right?"

"Jeez, Carter, what'd I ever do to you?" Lance says, shoving at his shoulder. "You're always all, 'Oh my God, no tuna fish, right? No green beans, right?' Have I made a casserole for you, yet?

And, well, fuck, he thinks, mentally turning over the paltry vegetable stores he's got in the freezer, because there were, in fact, going to be green beans - not in a casserole, but still. Apparently it's going to be a _problem_.

"They just remind me of family dinners," Nick says, making a face before he looks back at the TV. "And kind of make me want to throw up."

The last part is mumbled, but Lance thinks about what family dinners must have been like in the Carter compound and decides it probably would have put him off his green beans, too. He suspects too many of those dinners were too much like their disastrous attempt at Thanksgiving.

He nudges Nick's shoulder again but shakes his head when Nick looks over at him, snapping his mouth shut on something about making some better memories of family dinners, because he can't believe he almost just said that. It's got to be the warmth of Nick's fingers wrapped around his ankle that's short-circuiting his _brain_. He struggles up from the sofa and Nick's octopus grasp, retreating to the kitchen where he can be safely mortified alone. He forgot to preheat the oven, so he leans on the counter, playing with his top layer of shredded cheese while it heats, listening to Nick flipping channels.

"How did it go today?" he calls out.

"It was fine," Nick says, sounding distracted. "They seemed to like the video OK, but the VJ who was there was ... kind of an ass."

What a shocker, Lance thinks but doesn't bother to say. The kid probably wondered why he was talking to a band he thought should be relegated to the old folks' home of VH1. Asshole.

He can hear the sound of whatever's passing for MTV's afternoon programming these days, and he spends some time cleaning pots - he already misses having a dishwasher - and trying to get up the cheese and milk he managed to get all over the counter and down the front of the oven door while he was layering everything into the dish one-handed and trying to talk to his mom at the same time. He's just put the macaroni and cheese in the oven and closed the door when he hears Brian's voice and an interviewer's response, and he realizes they must be re-airing the Boys' video premiere.

"So, you've been spending a lot of time with former NSYNCer Lance Bass," Lance hears the interviewer say, and he rubs a hand over his face, because he knows what's coming. Really, he should just go ahead and punch himself in the face. He wanders to the kitchen doorway instead and leans against it, arms crossed, looking out into the living room.

"Yeah," Nick's voice says on the TV

Lance can tell just from the tone that Nick's smiling, that big dopey grin he has, and oh my God, he thinks. If Perez Hilton wasn't already up both their asses, he's certainly going to be now. Shut up, he thinks at Nick-on-TV. Shut up, now.

"Yeah," Nick-on-TV continues. "He's a great guy. I like him a lot."

"Are you concerned about what people might think, with you spending so much time with him?" the VJ asks.

Lance doesn't recognize this guy, he's about 5 years old, like all the famewhore wannabes they have on MTV these days, and Lance never thought he'd miss Carson Daly, for God's sake, but at least Carson wasn't using entertainment reporting as some kind of failed stepping stone to a movie career, and he knew some of his stuff, and most importantly, he hadn't been a _totally offensive idiot_. This guy is making Lance sound like some kind of child molester, or something. Lance can feel his chest tighten, and he realizes he's clenched his hands into fists. Apparently, this is the guy he'd really like to punch in the face. He could do it, too - he knows everybody thinks he's a pansy, but one of the first things Chris taught him was how to throw a punch, told him he'd need it sooner or later.

"Concerned?" says Nick-on-TV, looking blankly at the VJ like he has no idea what the guy could possibly be talking about, a small furrow of discontent forming between his eyebrows, like a sleeping bear that's been poked by a stick. "No."

Lance flicks a look over at the Nick on his sofa, who's watching the TV with studied intensity.

"All of the guys from NSYNC, they're good guys," Brian's voice says. "That supposed feud we had going, that was just blown out of proportion by marketing people, selling records. We all like each other just fine."

"Well, maybe not _all_," Lance mutters, and Nick-on-the-sofa twitches.

"Yeah," AJ tells the interviewer. "A lot of us spend time with each other these days. I mean, Lance and Nick are hanging out, JC and I have done some more writing together ..."

"Right, right ..." the interviewer says, like he has any idea what AJ's talking about. "Tell me a little about that."

Crisis averted, just like that. Lance lets out the breath he's been holding. He has to hand it to Nick's guys, they know how to throw up the diversionary tactics.

"You're right," he says, walking over to the sofa. "That guy's a total ass. But it didn't go too bad ..." He loses track of his thought, thrown by the scowl on Nick's face. "Um."

"I know," Nick says. "I'm sorry."

"What?" Lance says. He's not quite sure what just happened and why Nick looks so mad. "What's ... going on with you right now?"

"I'm sorry," Nick says again, looking up at him from the sofa. He's got his arms wrapped around his chest like he's hugging himself, and he looks a lot like his little brother, with that stubborn, petulant look on his face. "I'm not concerned about it. I'm not. I just ... I know you worry about what people are gonna think, you know. You do. But _I_ don't care. It doesn't matter to me. And Brian and AJ don't have to ... to cover up for me like that. Like I'm doing something wrong. Like you're doing something wrong. It's not right, and I'm sorry they make you think they don't like you."

"Nick," Lance says, dropping on the sofa beside him. He sits for a minute, trying to figure out what he wants to say, because Nick's worries are so far from the problem, he doesn't even know where to start. "I told you. I don't worry about what people think."

It's a lie, but he doesn't care. Sure, he worries every day about what people are thinking about them, but not for the reasons Nick thinks. No, Lance worries every day because he understands perfectly well why Brian and AJ covered for Nick.

"What, then?" Nick asks.

"It's just, people are gonna keep talking," Lance says. "And they're gonna figure it out."

And then you're gonna be gone, he doesn't say.

He knows the naive innocence schtick and being oh-so-above what people might think of you for hanging out with your gay BFF will only go so far. It's completely different for them to think you're sucking his dick when you actually _are_. Sure, the idea that you might be gay doesn't matter - to people who _aren't_, to people who can afford the luxury of speculation because it's not true. That's something else Lance knows from experience.

He presses his back against the sofa arm, pulling up his knees and wrapping his arms around them, digging his toes between the cushions. Nick scrubs a hand through his hair.

"I wish I could convince you that it _doesn't matter_ what people say," he says in a low, defeated voice, and Lance nods.

"OK," he says.

"OK," Nick says.

They both sound pretty unconvincing. They both sound pretty unconvinced. Lance has the same miserable feeling he gets after they've had a fight, and he's not quite sure what just happened or how to deal with it. He wonders if something just got irrevocably broken and feels sick to his stomach.

"I'm not ready for this to be over," he says finally, tilting his head back so that he's looking at the ceiling instead of meeting Nick's eyes.

Nick sits for a minute, not moving, not speaking, before he shifts on the sofa, drawing one knee up to face Lance.

"Hey," he says, pulling at Lance's wrist. "Hey."

Lance figures Nick wants to tangle their fingers together, maybe tug until he can get Lance back in his lap, but his hair's falling down into his eyes again, and Lance can't help leaning forward to push it off his forehead. It's too short now to tuck behind his ear, but Lance doesn't let that stop him from combing his fingers through the silky hair there, anyway. Nick grabs him and holds him there, tilting his face into Lance's palm.

"I keep trying to tell you, I'm not going anywhere." His lips move against the skin of Lance's wrist, and his words are more breath than sound, and Lance has to press his free hand over his eyes for a minute.

"C'mere," he says finally, poking Nick in the shin with his toes. He has to clear his throat before he can speak again. "Come over here."

Nick crowds him against the arm of the sofa, settling between his thighs, hemming him in; he gets a hand under each of Lance's knees and pulls, settling Lance halfway in his lap before leaning in, pushing Lance back and down on the couch. Lance bites at Nick's lips as their mouths meet, a little sharper than usual, hands clenched in the front of Nick's sweater, pulling him close. Nick makes a harsh sound and buries a hand in Lance's hair, tugging him away from the kiss; Lance tries to catch Nick's mouth once, twice, before rocking his head back into Nick's palm, baring his throat. He winds a leg around Nick's hip as he feels tongue and teeth pressed to the curve of his neck.

"_Nick_," he says, from deep in his chest, a low rumble, and there's the answering sting of teeth before Nick raises his head to press his forehead against Lance's temple.

"If you're not ready for this to be over, don't make it be over." Nick's voice is low and fierce, his breath hot and damp against Lance's jaw.

His fingers bracelet Lance's wrists, digging in, pressing Lance into the cushions. Lance arches up into the body above him, all his muscles drawn taut, taut, before he relaxes, going limp underneath Nick.

No, he thinks, turning his head to kiss, licking softly at a rough spot on Nick's bottom lip where he bit too hard. No, not until you want me to.

They lay there for a few minutes, Nick's grip on Lance's wrists loosening, and Lance finally pulls one hand away to comb through Nick's hair. Nick slides down to use Lance's chest as a pillow, his breath steadying and evening out under the rhythmic motions of Lance's touch.

"I can't believe you hate my apartment," Lance finally says.

"I don't hate your apartment. I do hate your neighbor who's got his eye on your ass."

"Jeff's 65 years old. Don't be hatin' on old people, Carter."

Nick makes a disgruntled sound and shifts slightly, draping an arm across Lance's stomach and tucking a hand under his hip. Lance can feel Nick's body getting heavier, loose and slack as he drifts closer to sleep. He grumbles under his breath but doesn't quite wake up when Lance's cellphone rings.

It's Lance's mom.

"Did you take it out of the oven, yet?" she asks.

"I forgot to pre-heat," he tells her. "I've still got, like, 10 minutes or something 'til it's ready."

"Too bad for you," she tells him. "Mine is already delicious."

"Yeah, yeah," he says, huffing a laugh. "Mine's going to be fabulous, too."

 

•••

 

Lance wakes up in what's clearly the middle of the night, he's convinced of it. The other side of the bed is still warm, but he's pretty sure that's only because of the heated mattress pad - which he got now that he's living in _Antarctica_.

Nick is gone.

He rolls over and squints at the clock in the dark, trying to make sense of what time it is, before he pushes himself up and sits on the edge of the bed for a minute, trying to figure out what he needs to do next. Sweatpants, he thinks. Sweatpants would be good, because he's freezing. Also some socks. He's pretty sure there were some socks that he just toed off and left on the floor beside the bed earlier in the evening. And yeah, he's just going to take this blanket that's been kicked off the end of the bed, onto the floor, he's going to take that and wear that out to the kitchen, too.

He follows the clatter coming from the kitchen, which is probably what woke him up in the first place. Maybe it was the half-conscious realization that he was alone in bed - well, no, it was probably the clatter, he thinks, wincing at a particularly harsh metallic clank. At any rate, now he remembers, Nick and the other Boys have some kind of morning show appearance scheduled, promo for the album, a release in time for Christmas sales, and that means being up at ass o'clock in the morning to get hair and makeup out of the way in time to perform for a TV audience that's just shambling its way toward its morning coffee. What a bad fuckin' idea that is, Lance thinks, sparing a moment of deep gratitude that his guys pretty much stuck with Pat O'Brian and _Access Hollywood_ instead of working the morning show circuit the way Backstreet did. Does. Whatever. He steps on a dog bone in the dark and curses as it rolls.

He comes instantly awake and alert as he rounds the corner into the kitchen and sees Nick poking around in the toaster with a fork.

"What the hell, Carter, what's wrong with you, do you want to get electrocuted?" He hisses as his accompanying dramatic gesture lets in a draft, clutching his blanket around him.

"I unplugged it, Jesus," Nick says, making a face at him and waving the fork around. "I'm not a complete moron. By the way, your toaster _sucks_."

"You never seem to mind when I do," Lance says, leaning in the doorway, and he smirks when Nick looks up at him again.

"If you start shooting toast out of your ass, don't think I won't have something to say about that," Nick says. "Also, you don't have any peanut butter. Who doesn't have a jar of peanut butter sitting around somewhere?"

He's frowning at the toaster, hair hanging in his face in damp strands from a shower already, and Lance is kind of surprised it took him this long to wake up. To get woken up. Whatever. Nick's never going to be precisely stealthy, but if someone had told Lance a year ago that Nick Carter could be as quiet as he sometimes manages to be in the middle of the night, Lance probably would've laughed at them. Nick Carter in the dark is something that has to be experienced to be believed - it's like he's got some kind of weird infrared vision or something, wandering around clueless and somehow safely oblivious to all obstacles. It's possible Lance is a little bitter, given his talent for constantly tripping over stuff and running into furniture that's right exactly where it's always been, like last night, when he knocked over Nick's guitar in its corner of the bedroom and jammed two of his toes against the dresser - including the toe he keeps breaking, for fuck's sake, like he needs that kind of thing right now, with six shows a week.

It's also possible he's a little grumpy, but it's not like anybody here has had their morning coffee, so he can't bring himself to feel bad about it. He pulls his blanket tighter around himself and watches Nick dig out burnt toast and adjust the lever that tells the toaster how brown to make the bread before putting in another two slices.

"You should go back to bed, there's no reason for you to be up," Nick says.

There's really not - Nick knows his way around Lance's kitchen by now, and he can let himself out - but Lance just shrugs and tilts over to lean against him, pressing his cheek against Nick's shoulder and closing his eyes as Nick waits on his toast.

"_Peanut butter_," Nick mutters bitterly when the toaster dings.

Lance yawns.

"Honey in a jar on the cookbook shelf," he says, not even opening his eyes.

There's a quick tappa-tap of Nick's fingers - probably considering - and then he shifts Lance to lean against the counter and moves away to rummage around on the shelf Lance has set aside for the cookbooks they've collected here - Rocco's and two more on Italian cooking from Joey, Thai from JC, French from Shannon and Asian fusion from AJ, along with a book of updated, fancified Southern recipes that Nick showed up with last night and a book of seafood recipes Lance picked up for half-price over the weekend. Lance listens to Nick butter his toast and smear it with honey; there are some sucking sounds involved that are probably Nick getting honey off his fingers, and it's a good thing Lance is half-asleep again already, or he might be getting ideas that would make Nick late.

"Dude, come here. My feet are cold," Nick says, and Lance looks down to see bare toes peeking out from the hem of his jeans.

"Put on some _socks_, Carter," he says, but he shuffles over and leans into Nick, wrapping his arms and the blanket around Nick's waist.

Nick shifts, leaving his weight on his heels, leaning back against the counter, putting his toes and the balls of his feet on top of Lance's to get them off the cold floor. He curls his toes into the material of Lance's socks, and Lance rocks their feet from side to side, yawning again as he stares down at their stacked toes, the top of his head pressed into Nick's chest. Nick's chewing in his ear, and when Lance raises his head, Nick feeds him the last bite of toast and honey before wiping his hand on the seat of his pants.

"Nice hair," he says as Lance chews, and he runs a hand through Lance's bedhead.

Lance tosses his head to escape the touch, scowling as he swallows his toast, because he knows, OK? It's always a mess when he gets out of bed.

"You better not be getting honey in my hair, buddy," he says.

"Make you even sweeter than you already are, baby." Nick ducks his head to croon, low, in Lance's ear, and Lance turns to stare at him.

"Are you tryin' to seduce me?" he asks. "Right now? Because I have to tell you, you will not make your morning call if you want to start something."

Nick just grins at him and pushes his hair back, kissing him quick and sweet.

"Go back to bed," he says.

"Fine," Lance says, stepping back and gathering his blanket around himself. "Go play with the other boys. I'll think about you while I'm curled up in bed ... Oh, wait. No, I won't. Because I'll be _asleep_. Ha!"

"You're totally loopy," Nick says.

"Tired." Lance yawns and presses the heels of his hands into his closed eyes. It's nice to be performing regularly again, but he's not as young as he used to be.

"Yeah, well, we're still here tomorrow - MTV in the afternoon - so I was thinking I'd come see this show that's wearing you out, tonight, OK? See how you compare to Kevin."

"Yeah. OK." Lance leans up to press a quick kiss against Nick's temple before turning to shuffle back to the bedroom. He pauses in the doorway and turns back around. "By the way, don't let Brian start you guys off. He's always flat in the mornings, and then all of you are off, and you sound like crap."

"Bass, go back to bed, before you say something that means I have to fight you over the honor of my boyband."

It's cold in the bedroom when Lance shrugs off his blanket, so he feels around at the foot of the bed - stubbing his toes again in the process, God - until he finds the hoodie Nick left there last night. He pulls it over his head before he crawls back into bed, which is thankfully still warm from the heated mattress pad. He lies there listening to Nick run water in the sink and put on his shoes and zip up his jacket; he licks traces of honey from his lips as he listens to Nick say something low and cajoling to the dogs and quietly close the front door. When the dogs come wandering back into the bedroom, he lets them get up on the bed and burrow under the blankets with him, where it's warm.

 

•••

 

"I have to buy BJ something for Christmas," Nick says, and "I don't have any idea what I'm doing in here," he says, and "Oh my God, Bass, you have to help me."

They're supposed to be shopping for the easy Christmas presents, stupidly pretentious stuff for JC and AJ, stupidly fun stuff for Brian and Joey, but then they passed Williams-Sonoma and Nick turned around and dragged Lance inside, and now they're on their second round of the store. Nick's wandering aimlessly from cookware sets to high-tech turkey basters, dodging and weaving around other holiday shoppers and what seems like billions of bags full of holiday purchases. Lance is surprised BJ's fascination with cooking and chef-itude has lasted this long, really - he expects that any day, Nick's going to tell him she's announced she wants to be a pearl diver or go find herself by meditating on top of a mountain, or something. Nick's so earnestly focused on encouraging some kind of stability and rationality in his brother and sisters that it's like some kind of second career for him, though. Lance can't think it's entirely bad - even if he does sometimes wonder if it's ultimately futile. Some days he's not sure how Nick's turned out as well as he has, honestly. He supposes he has the other Boys and court-ordered counseling to thank for it. He makes a mental note to put Kevin on his Christmas card list.

"A lemon reamer?" Nick says, turning to him, and Lance actually backs up a step to avoid taking the utensil Nick's trying to hand him.

"You're making that up," he says, leaning in and arching an eyebrow when Nick points at the sign. He looks skeptically at the wooden bin of lemon _reamers_, oh my God, and back at the sign, before Nick's glee pulls him away.

"Dawg, check this out, look." Nick's popping open some kind of bright red, collapsible silicone cup, then pushing it flat again, and Lance realizes it's a measuring cup. "You could fit, like, five sets of these in the drawer at home."

"That is not the solution to never having clean measuring cups, _JC_," Lance says, trying for scathing. "Put that back. Oh, hey, look at this. This is _cool_."

He picks out a pair of the utensil pot clips, snapping them at Nick like he's going to make them bite, pausing to examine the packaging.

"You know, we could actually use these."

"Oh, yeah?" Nick raises his eyebrows, smirking, and Lance shoves him in the shoulder.

"Shut up, no," he says. "Clothespins would be a lot cheaper if I was planning for cut-rate kinky sex. I just want to stop dripping sauce all over the stove when we make pasta."

"Wait, what about clothespins and kinky sex? You been holding out on me, baby?"

"We're not buying a lemon reamer," Lance says, studiedly casual, examining a shiny collection of kitchenware. He curls his hand around a salad spinner and turns to Nick, who squints at the display sign.

"What? Fifty bucks for a salad spinner, are you kidding me?" Nick ducks sheepishly as a couple of heads turn at his outburst. "Well, they're like twenty dollars, off of TV," he hisses at Lance, as if his volume's any lower than it was before.

"When they're _plastic_."

They spend a few minutes poking at the mandolines, Nick wrinkling his nose in a way that really makes Lance want to poke him. In a totally playful way, he thinks, a poke that would be followed by a kiss that would be followed by some making out, if Lance was lucky and Nick wasn't currently standing in the middle of Williams-Sonoma, studying mandolines with deep skepticism. Instead, Lance gets some random stranger stepping on the back of his heel, and he turns to find a woman hauling three shopping bags in each hand, trying to find some space to set them down in front of the shellfish utensils. Somewhere in the back of his head, his mother pokes him in the mental ribs.

"Here, let me help," he says, taking one set of the bags from the woman.

"Oh God, thank you so much," she says and laughs, greying red hair sliding out of a messy bun and into her face. She pushes it back behind her ears, still smiling. "Shouldn't have waited this long to do holiday shopping, huh?"

"Probably not," he says, flashing her a grin.

There's a younger woman half behind her with the same nose and mouth, the same bright hair still ungreyed and cropped short, a daughter probably, who looks up at Lance's words. Her eyes widen slightly as they meet his, and Lance braces himself, setting his shoulders just a little bit.

"It's a slicer," Nick says, turning back to him. "A slicer that makes you do the work. It's not even electric. What's the point of that?"

"It juliennes," the younger woman says. She looks from Lance to Nick, who's got his face screwed up in disbelief. "Yeah, I know."

"So, what do you want for Christmas?" Lance asks her. She looks about BJ's age.

"Ideally? An eagle front fender for my Harley." She shrugs. "I'm a simple girl."

"You think BJ'd want an eagle front fender for Christmas?" Lance asks Nick.

"Probably not. But Chris might."

"Huh," Lance says, tipping his head in thought.

"Geez, thanks," Nick says to the girl, and she laughs as Nick pulls Lance away. "Focus, Bass. We're trying to find something for my sister, right now."

"So let's think about this," Lance says, coming to a halt in the middle of the aisle. A guy carrying a toddler jostles him, and Nick puts a steadying hand under his elbow. "What kind of thing do you want to get her?"

"I just need something she'll use but that she wouldn't buy for herself. Something nice."

Lance tugs him by the sleeve back to the entrance, where they're confronted by the waffle bakers - bakers, not irons, apparently. Lance isn't sure when that change happened. Nevertheless, he looks at Nick and raises his eyebrows, making Vanna hands at the display. Nick pokes a finger in some of the non-stick grooves, seeming doubtful, so Lance throws in an extra flourish.

"I don't think she's that into waffles," Nick says. "Although ... maybe if she had one of these, she'd be more into them? Oh, hey. Look. We can have pancakes shaped like _Rudolph_."

And OK, yeah, the pancake molds are pretty damn cool - Santa and snowmen and reindeer. It's just that their single attempt at pancakes was ... less than a success, ending with an abbreviated breakfast of bacon - burnt bacon, Lance remembers with a grimace - a lot of scrubbing and a huge tip for Lance's weekly cleaning service in L.A.

"But pancakes shaped like _Frosty_," Nick says.

"Pancake all over the floor, babe," Lance says. "And the cabinet doors. And the _wall_."

"Well, we just can't have sex until after they're cooked, from now on," Nick says reasonably, tugging on the end of Lance's scarf. His voice drops, gets low and intimate so Lance has to step closer to hear him. "I could feed them to you in bed."

"No syrup on my sheets," Lance says, pushing away the thought of sticky sweet fingers and trying for stern, even as he feels himself flush. Someone bumps into him from behind, shoving him against Nick's side. There's a murmur of apology, and then the woman's gone, disappearing into the shifting current of holiday shoppers.

"Kevin always says jam is better with pancakes, anyway," Nick says with a shrug, giving Lance's scarf another tug before releasing him.

"Dude, we're supposed to be buying stuff for other people." Lance is trying to be virtuous, here - in all kinds of ways.

"OK, but what?"

Lance turns in a circle, surveying the possibilities, and spots the wall of espresso and cappuccino makers.

"No," Nick says, emphatic, grabbing him by the back of his jacket and pulling him to a halt before he can get far. "She does not need that kind of caffeine intake. I'm not going to be responsible for that."

"Just ... trust me," Lance says, heading off on a vector as if he'd never had his eye on the triple-shot ultra-caffeinated appliances in the first place. A couple of shoppers dart between them, and he reaches back to snag the cuff of Nick's sleeve, pulling him along to another display.

"A mixer?" Nick sounds thoughtful as he curls his fingers into the palm of Lance's hand.

"Come on," Lance says, loosening his grip on Nick's coat. "Think about it. Pie crust and stuff. You can only benefit from this."

Nick shoots him a look of pity, apparently at his ignorance in the ways of younger sisters, and winds his fingers through Lance's. Lance expected Nick to drop his hand once they made their way out of the press of shoppers in the store's central area, but when Lance tries to pull away now, Nick just hangs on, head tilted, focus turned on the mixers. Lance tugs again, and Nick turns back to him, curling his hand tighter around Lance's, a considering look on his face. They battle through a few moments of some kind of staring contest that Lance really doesn't have a hope of winning, and he finally flushes and looks back at the display.

"She will never buy this for herself," he tells Nick, pointing at the Kitchen-Aid.

Nick gives his hand a tiny shake and leans in to squint at the sign on the shelf.

"Dude, where are your glasses?" Lance asks him.

"Holy shit, no, she won't," Nick says at the same time, cracking Lance up. "_Nine hundred dollars_ for a mixer?"

"I thought only Chris could hit that note," Lance says.

"What?" Nick says. "What the hell? Nine hundred dollars?" He's still a little squeaky with outrage.

"It's supposed to be the best," Lance says. "You wanted something nice. Something she wouldn't buy for herself."

"Lance, I can't buy her that. It'll just piss me off if she ends up breaking it. And you've met me. My family is about a hundred times worse than I am, when it comes to breaking stuff. It's gonna happen."

"OK, so maybe not that one. There's one for, like, less than half the price."

Nick peers at another sign, resting his chin on Lance's shoulder and considering. He's muttering something under his breath about how, yes, $400 is less than half of $900, but really? _Really?_, when someone walks up behind them and Lance elbows him in the side.

"Can I help you with something?" a voice says.

Lance loosens his grip again as they turn their heads to the saleswoman, but Nick acts like he's oblivious, still hanging on to Lance with one hand as he points at the mixer with the other, going on about colors and chrome and hey, can they wrap it for him?

It's just that Lance knows Nick can't be oblivious, not after that weird little standoff they just had.

Nick isn't quite outing himself, Lance thinks. He just isn't ... staying in. No magazine announcement, no big fanfare, just ... this, standing in the middle of a store, holding Lance's hand and talking to some saleswoman about how awful Lance's toaster is. He remembers Nick's low laugh and "I know right?" and the way a tiny dark-haired flight attendant grinned at him as he wandered back up an airplane aisle to his seat beside Nick. He thinks about Nick's sunshine grin and "I like him a lot" on MTV. He stands there blankly for a minute. Then he makes a face at himself in the side of a shiny, shiny indoor grill.

Oh my God, he thinks. I'm Samantha Ronson.

"Hey," he finally manages, squeezing Nick's hand. "I should go. Um. Take a look at the tablecloths and napkins, see if there's anything I should get for my mom. No, stay here. Go ahead and buy your mixer."

He wanders through the linens section, but he can't focus on anything, really. The last time he felt this kind of stupid amazement, he was being pulled through a restaurant kitchen behind Double-0-Carter.

He finally finds himself in front of the display of wine accessories and blinks at a collection of tiny bottles, reaching out to poke at their display box. "Le Nez du Vin," the box exclaims, and the explanatory sign promises it'll teach him the essential aromas he needs to know to appreciate any wine. JC will love it.

He's wandering toward the register when he sees the book with recipes for hot drinks and pauses to leaf through it, stopping to examine the ingredients for a hot toddy. He thinks about Nick's hot chocolate, thinks about the way both of them have been collecting boxes of tea in one of his cupboards like they're actually going to drink it and puts the book on his pile.

"Anything good in there?" a voice asks, and Lance looks up to spot a guy - OK, a hot guy, he amends to himself, tall and dark and just Lance's type, God - standing a little too close for casual conversation, eyeing him instead of the book.

"Maybe," Lance says and grins. "I don't know. I'm looking forward to trying a couple of things. At home."

He quirks an eyebrow at the guy, holding his gaze for a minute, until he nods. Lance shrugs apologetically.

"Really?" the guy says. "Well, I hope you find something you like."

He flashes a grin that, OK, yes, makes Lance feel a little weak in the knees as he moves off, and Lance looks around to see if he can spot Nick. He finds him back over by the waffle bakers, tugging at the blonde fringe that's poking out of the front of a knitted cap that Lance is pretty sure was stolen from AJ at some point. It looks like Nick's chewing on his bottom lip, and Lance watches him pick up the pancake molds again. He steps back, behind a set of shelves, as Nick lifts his head and looks around; there's another table right behind Lance, and he catches the sugar cookie cutters before they can fall on the floor, spends a minute stacking them back up, running a finger along the curve of a handle and thinking about Christmas cookies. Stacey was always so careful about attention to detail, spending painstaking minutes on each cookie with the paint their mom made out of egg yolk and food coloring, and Lance never really had the patience for that. He remembers tossing red and green sugar sprinkles over his pans of stars and bells and trees, over the Santa Clauses with cinnamon red hots at the end of their hats, and insisting on another set to decorate. They put aside a whole Saturday every year to make those cookies, right in the middle of the hectic holiday season, Lance remembers. Even his dad helped, rolling out the dough between sheets of wax paper until it was paper thin, smiling as Lance's mom tried to brush flour off his cheek with sugary fingers.

As he wanders up to the register, he finds Nick back in the cookware section, running his fingers along the curving lines of a set of Lagostina pots, almost like he's petting them. Lance remembers those strong fingers curving gentle around the soft swell of a tomato, and his stomach hollows out. If he's going to be honest, though, he likes those fingers better when they're tracing the curve of his knuckles, running along the dip and swell of the palm of his hand.

"Hey," he says, bumping Nick with one shoulder and leaning against him. "You almost ready to go?"

"Almost," Nick says. "Just have to pay."

There's a rich buttery hot pastry smell wafting around the register, and one of the store's employees pulls a pan out of the oven in the nearby cooking demonstration area as Lance sets his stuff down on the counter.

"What is that?" Lance asks, as Nick points at the pile of stuff they're holding for him. Lance presses up against Nick's back to peek around his shoulder at the pan. "It smells _fabulous_."

He doesn't believe her when she tells him it's just crust, pastry crust, that she's using to make ornamental leaves. She gestures at one of the finished pies off to one side, tiny leaves garnishing the curve of its edge.

"Can we try?" Nick asks, as she pushes the hot pan out of her way to brush a pan of raw leaves with egg white.

They're tiny and crumbly and _hot_, sharp sting against the pads of Lance's fingers when he picks one up, and he clenches his other hand in the back of Nick's shirt, slung around his waist under his coat. They're also buttery and crisp, and the leaves melt on Lance's tongue.

"Now you've got crumbs ... wait. Here," Nick says, and he brushes off the corner of Lance's mouth with a thumb and grins at him.

 

•••

 

Justin probably meant well when he showed up with his little carton of orange juice, wanting to check on Lance and maybe make him feel better - as if there's anything that could make Lance feel better right now - but the problem is, he brought Chris along with the juice, and Justin's good nature and good intentions invariably get sidetracked when Chris is around.

Lance feels a responsibility to hold his own, because he can remember when he worried they'd always get weird whenever he was sick. It's still a relief when they don't. Plus Chris and Justin manage to get together so rarely these days, and if it takes ganging up on Lance, he figures he's tough enough to take it. Only he doesn't seem tough enough today, and when Chris starts making retching noises while Justin - of course - laughs like a hyena, all Lance can do is lie there and tell himself he will not throw up. Oh, yeah, and inform Chris through gritted teeth that if he doesn't shut the fuck up, Lance is going to get up off the sofa and kill him.

Maybe he's venomous enough that Chris actually believes him - he blinks a couple of times and seems kind of taken aback - but it doesn't matter, anyway, because that's when Nick descends and herds Chris and Justin out the door without even touching them, as slick as Dre or Mike ever managed with a 12-year-old girl, just by being kind of big and in the way if they try to go any direction but out. It's not the first time Lance has suspected that at least part of the dumb part of the big dumb schtick is an act. Chris manages to lean back into the apartment and get his head around the doorjamb and and make kissie noises at Lance, and that's when Nick puts a big hand on his forehead and facepalms him backward with a "Come on, man." There's some squawking, magnified by the high ceiling of the outside hall, and then the sound of a scuffle outside as Nick closes the front door. Lance suspects Justin has suddenly remembered his grandma-instilled Southern manners and is tugging Chris toward the stairs.

Nick disappears back toward the kitchen after tossing out the Dreadful Duo, and Lance is half ravenous, half repelled by the rich scent wafting into the main area of the apartment. His stomach's on edge, and he's not sure if it's rumbling or roiling as he twists and kicks out pettishly at the afghan still wrapped around his legs. Nevertheless, the smell manages to pull him from his bed and pain and woe ... well, his sofa of pain and woe ... where he's wrapped himself up and hunkered down to stare stuporously at the TV screen as The N plays a marathon of _My So-Called Life_. He's always loved that show. Sometimes he wonders if Brian Krakow will wake up one day, down the road, and shave off his curls in impatience and defiance, and how many people will have to threaten to break down doors before Rayanne realizes she's worth getting clean. When he first met Wilson Cruz, backstage with Joey still in sweaty costume and stage makeup, Lance had told him what a great job he'd done on the show. Wilson had looked at him, maybe into him, and smiled, and Lance had known he'd heard the still-unspoken part, the part about how amazing and important it'd been for a 15-year-old boy in Laurel, Mississippi to see Rickie on television.

Brian's gawking through the half-opened bathroom door at Rayanne shaving her legs as Lance shuffles toward the kitchen, feeling like one big ache.

Nick's lounging beside the stove, elbow on the counter, chin in hand, face dreamy as he stirs what he's got in the pot. The scent of chicken and something sharp manages to make it through the congestion in Lance's head. Just how much snot can the human head hold, anyway, he wonders peevishly as he slumps down on the other side of the stove, pressing his face against the blessed coolness of the countertop. He's already missed three shows, and they're just going to cancel his contract if he doesn't get back onstage soon.

Nick's spoon rattles and then there's a hesitant hand on Lance's back. Lance tenses, but Nick just rubs lightly, fingers pressing through the soft cotton of Lance's T-shirt. Lance sighs and sprawls out a little bit further across the counter, seeking the chill of empty space and offering a broader expanse of his back to Nick's hand. He thinks he could even take a bit more pressure. Nick's fingers hit a knot under his left shoulder blade and dig in, and he lets out a groan made even more rumbly by whatever's gunking up his head and chest. He wonders if he can convince Nick to give him a massage and sniffs disconsolately when Nick leaves him to go give his pot a stir.

"Chicken soup," Nick says. He sounds kind of ... embarrassed? "I mean, it's not a big thing, or anything. I figured if Denise could make it on a hotplate in a hotel room, I could do something in your kitchen."

"How'd you get a chicken in that pot?" Lance asks, slitting open one eye to look at the saucepan. All he ever does is boil eggs in it. He suspects JC used it to make rice that times he cooked here, but Lance figures that's the sort of thing the microwave is for.

"It's just a breast," Nick says. "That's how come you can make a pot small enough in a hotel room. Or on the bus."

Lance didn't mean the question seriously, and the answer surprises him. He'd expected something out of a can. A fancy can maybe, if Nick was trying to be impressive, but still. He wonders if Nick knows he doesn't have to work this hard to get into Lance's pants any more.

"Seriously?" he asks, interested in spite of his misery.

"Sure," Nick says. "I mean, cook it up with some onion and garlic and ... some ... um ..." He consults a crumpled piece of paper on the counter, then stuffs it in the pocket of his jeans. "Celery and stuff. You know. But you didn't have any carrots left." He sounds apologetic. "I put in a few hot peppers, though. And rice."

Lance blinks.

"There's some ginger tea, too," Nick says. "It's what Howie makes me drink when I get sick and feel like I'm gonna throw up. And you need to try the soup, to see if I need salt or anything. Stand up a minute."

Lance's throat aches suddenly, and his eyes are watery, and he has to sniff again. It's just because of the Martian death flu, of course. He opens his mouth obediently. For a split second, he thinks his stomach is going to rebel as Nick brings the spoon to his lips and the broth rolls over his tongue. Then the heat eases some of the tightness in his throat, and he can feel the warmth spreading down through his stomach, which suddenly decides to fall on the side of "ravenous."

"That's good," he says before he can stop himself, and he's afraid his tone might be a little too incredulous, but Nick just nods. Lance reminds himself that Nick may have been Kevin's youngest Boy, but he was Jane's oldest boy, and he's got some experience with sick and cranky kids. No matter what age they are. "Maybe a little bit more salt?"

Nick sprinkles carefully into the pot, looking over at Lance for approval before setting down the shaker to stir.

"Dude, don't put that spoon back in the pot when I've got germs all over it," Lance says, and Nick rolls his eyes.

"Maybe if anybody else was going to be eating out of it, I'd worry, but come on."

"You're not having any?"

"The only thing left for us to do at this point is share toothbrushes ... toothbreesh ... teethbreesh? So I'm not real worried about it, dawg. Oh, come on. That was damn funny. Admit it. AJ uses that all the time."

"I don't know much about Backstreet Boy hygiene, but you better not be using my toothbrush."

Nick sticks out his tongue at Lance before dipping up another spoonful of soup. Lance obediently opens again and nods his approval.

"I guess just another couple of minutes," Nick says, setting down the spoon, and he wraps one arm around Lance's waist, pulling him into the solid curve of his body.

Lance feels grubby and sweaty and in desperate need of a shower, but he can't bring himself to care about that. He remembers being really sick, on tour, 24 hours of almost-sleeping from Cleveland to Minneapolis, the rocking of the bus all around him and the low drone of the television in the background - videos of movies from the heyday of Hollywood musicals - and the slow, comfortable rise and fall of Joey's chest under his cheek. He presses his face into Nick's shoulder and concentrates on the fingers rubbing the small of his back again, under his T-shirt now against bare skin. It seems like the peppers Nick put in the soup are going to do their job and open up his head, because he already has to sniff. Again.

Nick raises his other hand to run fingers through Lance's flattened hair, tilting up his face and touching his forehead, his cheek, fingers cool against flushed skin, testing Lance's temperature maybe, but then he leans in to touch his lips to Lance's, and Lance pulls back.

"Hey, no, man," he says. "You guys've got a video shoot starting in two days." The thought makes him melancholy.

"Yeah, OK," Nick says, rolling his eyes. "Because I wouldn't have it already, if I was going to get it." He leans toward Lance again.

Lance knows it's stupid, but he kisses back, anyway.

 

•••

 

Nick's slumped on the sofa with the remote when Lance gets in from the dog park, nose and fingers chilled, socks damp from the slush and melting snow that's soaked through the leather of his boots. Foster sits patiently on the tail she's trying to wag, waiting for Lance to wipe her feet dry, but Dingo eludes Lance's grab and trots over to the sofa, still trailing her leash, to nose into the hand on Nick's thigh.

"They're not showing Mr. Rogers any more," Nick says, patting Dingo's head absently as Lance flails around, trying to balance while he toes off his boots without unlacing them.

"What?"

"Mr. Rogers. It's not on TV in the afternoon any more. How can they not show Mr. Rogers?"

"Um. Isn't he dead?"

"What? No!"

"Dude, he was gettin' kind of old, you know." Lance peels off a limp sock, making a face at it, and wiggles his toes experimentally. A hot shower sounds really good right about now.

"You take that back." Nick's sitting upright now, stabbing a finger in Lance's direction.

Dingo puts both wet front paws on Nick's thigh and stands up on her back legs, tail thrashing wildly, eager to be a part of whatever excitement is going on; Nick gets distracted long enough to finally unclip her leash. He rummages around in the cushions of the sofa, finally coming up with a T-shirt Lance lost to certain ... activities in the small hours of the morning and using it to wipe her feet.

"Hey!" Lance may have been distracted enough to just let the shirt drop when it was peeled off of him, but that doesn't mean it's a rag, or something. "Anyway, I'm just saying, it happens to all of us." He pauses, distracted on his way down the hall, to snag the cup of hot chocolate - OK, cold chocolate at this point, and he makes another face as he swallows - that Nick's got sitting on top of the latest issue of Billboard on the end table.

"Hey, quit it," Nick says, reaching for the cup, and Lance deliberately, perversely, sets it out of reach as he drops onto the sofa, curling into Nick and sliding his hands up under Nick's T-shirt and the hoodie he's got zipped against the mid-winter chill Lance's heater can't seem to dispel.

"Charming" and "picturesque" brownstone, Lance's ass, this apartment is more like "old" and "drafty," and when is he going to learn not to listen to Joey? Maybe he should have gone with that high-rise he looked at, all chrome and dark sleek wood and beige carpets. Or just maybe he should have been foresighted enough to keep the last apartment he'd rented here, despite twin looks of horror from his mother and JC at the idea of paying New York City rent on a place where he wasn't even going to be living once his _Hairspray_ run was over. It's not like he couldn't have sublet the place. His fingers reach warm, bare skin under layers of worn, soft fabric, and Nick twists away with a high-pitched sound, shoving at Lance and almost falling on the floor.

"What the fuck, Bass, God!" He smacks at Lance, and somebody's foot kicks the coffee table, sends it sliding across the floor; a flurry of magazines hits the rug that JC insisted on buying for Lance's living room, a shocking pattern of reds and oranges and yellows that Lance will never admit - not even under tickle torture - kind of pulls the whole living room-dining room-kitchen area together in some indefinable way that Lance usually leaves up to interior decorators.

He secretly suspects the thing came out of some thrift shop somewhere - he'd had it professionally cleaned before he was willing to walk barefoot on it; JC might be vaguely weird about germs, but it's not like he's Justin, or something, and there was probably some kind of great deal involved, so better safe than sorry, Lance figures. He digs his toes into the soft nap of it and slouches against Nick's side on the sofa, tilting his head against Nick's shoulder and trying to suck up some body heat.

"My toes are cold," he complains, and Nick slants a scathing look at him, even as he wraps an arm around Lance's middle, resting a hand on Lance's stomach.

"No," he says. "You are not putting your cold feet on me. We're not even in bed."

"I could get pneumonia or something, and then who would feed you and put you up while you're doing promo in New York?" Lance asks, shifting so he can press his back into Nick's side. "I just got over being sick. I could have a relapse. I might miss some shows. And it'll be all your fault because you wouldn't warm me up."

"Oh, I'll warm you up," Nick says, sliding a hand up to pinch a nipple, and Lance jerks in surprise, banging his head into Nick's nose.

"Oh my God, I'm sorry," he says, twisting to check on Nick, who's got a hand over his nose and mouth. Enough of his face is uncovered to make his reproachful glare unmistakable, and Lance can't help laughing even as he apologizes.

"When you break my nose and I can't sing, it'll be all your fault, Bass. And I'll be sure to tell everyone that."

"Oh, yeah?" Lance says, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah. And you do not want to incur the wrath of 123,000 soccer moms. Trust me."

"Oh, yeah?" Lance says again and grins. "So, 123,000, huh?"

"Yeah." The corner of Nick's mouth quirks.

"And?"

"Number 62."

"Dude. That's at least another three weeks you guys'll have on the charts - maybe four." Lance can remember all too well talking in exponentially larger numbers, back in days when 123,000 units were a day's sales, not six weeks' - but Nick seems pleased, and that's enough for Lance.

"Not bad, I guess," is all Nick says as Lance drops back against his side.

"My feet are still cold," Lance says, in case he's forgotten.

"Bass, for fuck's sake ..." Nick trails off as he squirms around, pulling the afghan off the back of the sofa. He throws it over Lance's head, but he also tucks it down between Lance and the back of the sofa as Lance wiggles around, kicking at the material to get himself covered. Lance tucks his toes in between the cushions and tucks himself against Nick's side again.

"Do you wish you'd released your album first?" he asks, low, playing with Nick's fingers where they rest on his stomach underneath the afghan, and he can feel Nick's shrug, his shoulder moving under Lance's head.

"It wasn't the right time," Nick says. "It's not ... it's not just about the guys, you know, and when they were ready? It's about when I'm ready? I really didn't want the kind of pressure I'd be getting from the label. Not with a solo album. Not right now. I don't want another album I end up feeling bad about putting out."

"Pressure?"

"I'm just not good at playing their games," Nick says. He's got his fingers laced with Lance's but Lance can feel his leg vibrating where he's jittering one heel up and down. "I'm not good at being who they want me to be. I don't want to be, any more. And it's just. Less pressure to do that when the whole album isn't about me, you know?"

"Yeah?" Lance has learned by now that all Nick needs are a few verbal nudges and he'll keep rambling on until he finally gets to his point.

"I mean, I'd be hearing a whole lot of bullshit right now about who I'm being seen with and who I should be seen with and I just ... I don't want this to be about that. I don't want it to be like that. I thought one thing at a time would be easier to deal with. Brian always tells me to take one thing at a time. So." Nick pauses and takes a deep breath. "That's what I'm doing."

Lance's elbow digs into Nick's ribs as he pushes himself up, and Nick yelps again.

"Come on, babe. Stay still. You're killing me here. What?"

Lance just stares at him for a minute, trying to figure out if Nick is saying what he seems to be saying, if he's saying he put his album on hold for this, for them. He wants to ask, but he's afraid of the answer - whichever answer it is, really.

"I ... nothing," he finally says, slouching back down. He picks at the blanket from inside with his free hand before pulling it up under his chin as he shifts to look at the TV. "Is this _Dora the Explorer_?"

"Yeah," Nick says. "I can change it ..."

"No, whatever, this is fine," Lance says, blinking slowly at the screen. His little cocoon of afghan, in combination with Nick's body heat and the slow, absent petting of Nick's hand up and down his side, is close to putting him to sleep. "I think maybe they show Mr. Rogers on the weekends?"

"What?"

"Mr. Rogers. I know I've seen Layton watching it on the weekends when I've visited Stacey and Ford. I think maybe they decided not to run it on weekdays anymore."

"That's not right," Nick says. "How can you spend your afternoon without Mr. Rogers?"

"Why Mr. Rogers?" Lance asks, and he can feel Nick shrug again. He scoots his butt around some and puts his feet on the floor so he can throw an arm around Nick's middle, listen to Nick's answer as much through the rumble in his chest as the words from his mouth.

"I just. I used to watch with Aaron and Angel, that last winter before Aaron went on tour with us. I'd make ants on a log, and we'd watch every afternoon when they got home from school. I mean, I know was too old, but I liked going back and seeing it all again, you know?"

"Shut up," Lance says. "You're never too old for Mr. Rogers. I bought my mom one of his books for Christmas last year. Plus, everything I ever needed to know, I learned from Mr. Rogers."

"I don't ... think that's how that goes." Nick tugs on Lance's hair, down near the nape of his neck. "Also, I don't believe you."

"Are you calling me a liar?" Lance thumps his knuckles against Nick's ribs.

"Yes. Mr. Rogers never said anything about amazing blowjobs."

"Oh my God," Lance says, sitting straight up. "Do not ever mention Mr. Rogers and blowjobs in the same sentence ever again. That's so wrong, you pervert."

"Whatever," Nick says, shoving him. "I'm hungry. Aren't you supposed to be feeding me? Isn't that part of this deal?"

"We have many fine takeout menus for you to choose from," Lance says, poking him between the eyes with one finger. "Who would you like me to call?" He pushes himself up from the sofa, dropping a kiss on the same spot he poked, and turns to search for his cell.

"Whatever you want," Nick says. He's squinting at the television.

"Dude, put on your glasses," Lance says and wanders into the kitchen.

He pulls open the drawer where he keeps the delivery menus before pausing, considering, and then he opens the refrigerator door and rummages in the vegetable bin.

The carrots he comes up with are the mini-carrot kind, because Lance sees no reason to peel if he doesn't have to. That makes them already log-sized when he dumps out a handful of raisins from the box he bought to go with his morning oatmeal. They have an annoying tendency to roll, though, which Lance doesn't remember happening with the halved carrots his mom used. There's cream cheese in the fridge - nothing Lance would ever keep in there for himself, but he knows Nick likes it on bagels in the mornings.

Nick wanders in as Lance finishes smearing a thick layer of cream cheese over half a dozen carrots.

"What ... ?" he says, standing in the doorway, looking puzzled.

"You said," Lance says, sticking a couple of raisins on one of the "logs." "Here." He holds it out, expecting Nick to bite it right out of his fingers, but Nick takes it between his own, looking at it in bemusement

"What?" he says again.

"Ants on a log, right?" Lance says a little impatiently.

Nick studies the two "ants" before looking up at Lance and grinning.

"Carrots?" he says and tosses the whole thing into his mouth.

"Yes?" Lance says. "What do you mean?"

"Ants on a log is celery and peanut butter, dawg." Nick looks thoughtful as he crunches the carrot and cream cheese around in his mouth. "This is kind of good, though."

"Celery? That's ... what?"

"Celery," Nick says, nodding and reaching for another of Lance's cream-cheesed carrots. "Where are the ... oh." He presses three ants on the log, nose jammed to tail, before taking a bite.

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Sure it does. The celery is green like stuff that grows, right? And then the peanut butter is brown like the bark on a tree."

"And _sticky_," Lance says. "What kind of bark is that?"

"Dude, what kind of bark is cream cheese?" Nick turns around to rummage in the cabinet Lance pulled his raisins from. "Where'd it go?" he mutters, almost under his breath, before making a triumphant sound.

"Since when do I have peanut butter?" Lance asks as Nick unearths a jar from the very back of the cupboard. "And it's not bark. It's snow. It's a snowy log."

"We got it when I was here for Jingle Ball," Nick says. "And wouldn't the ants freeze?"

"No."

"Why not?" Nick's got the refrigerator door open now, poking around in the very back.

"Because. Because they wouldn't."

Nick backs out of the refrigerator and turns to raise an eyebrow at him.

"It's true," Lance insists. "And anyway, that's how my mom made them. And she was a teacher. Teachers know all about ants on a log."

"I thought she taught, like eighth grade or something," Nick says.

"She does."

"Isn't that a little bit old for ants on a log?"

Lance looks pointedly down at the rubbery celery in Nick's hands and then back up at him.

"Shut up." Nick grins. "Anyway, I've got four little brothers and sisters ... four ... sisters and _a_ brother ... _three_ sisters and a brother ... anyway. I've made about 50 million batches of ants on a log, so I think I know what I'm doing, right? Here."

Lance takes the length of celery - Nick didn't even bother to get a knife to cut the stalk into three pieces before smearing it with peanut butter, just snapped it with his hands, leaving the ends kind of ragged. Lance peels away a couple of strings before taking a careful bite.

"Anyway," Nick says, "you make those nasty peanut butter and banana sandwiches. You're all about the peanut butter then."

"Well, yeah."

"Even though everybody knows you're supposed to make banana sandwiches with mayonnaise."

"Oh my _God_," Lance says, then pauses to lick peanut butter off his teeth. "That is the most disgusting thing I've ever heard in my entire life. I have to leave, now."

"OK." Nick shrugs and smears a piece of celery with cream cheese.

Lance sticks out his tongue. It's still got some peanut butter and a few bits of celery on it. Nick laughs and throws a raisin at him.

"Anyway," Nick says, "peanut butter, it's good with apples, too." It's a little muffled by the cream cheese and celery in his mouth.

Lance turns over purchase dates in his head.

"Might be some of those in there, too," he says around his own mouthful.

"Yeah?" Nick goes to dig around in the refrigerator again.

"Might be too old," Lance says and swallows the peanut butter.

 

•••

 

Lance swallows the last mouthful of cold coffee before he uncurls himself from the sofa and stretches, shutting down his laptop and wandering into the kitchen for a fresh cup. He's waiting for another pot of Blue Mountain to brew when he hears the front door. Nick's had the security codes for both the building and Lance's apartment for weeks now, and Lance has almost stopped being surprised at his unannounced appearances - not that this visit is completely unexpected, not after Lance read the entertainment news from his Google alerts this morning.

"Hey," he says, as Nick appears in the kitchen doorway, dropping a duffle bag and leaning a shoulder against the jamb; two steps have Lance close enough to tilt Nick's face down to kiss him.

Nick's tense under his hands for a minute before he folds down and hugs Lance tight, burrowing his cold nose into Lance's neck. It reminds Lance of the way Justin clung to him in a dressing room after the third showcase in 35 hours across two countries, the night before Lynn pitched a fit and got them all a guaranteed day off at least once a week. It hadn't been the exhaustion that scared Lance so much as the complete lack of emotional reserves in the body pressed against his.

JC would say Lance never has been as scared of exhaustion as he should be, his own or anybody else's, but Lance wishes there was someone he could pitch a fit to, now - someone other than Nick, himself, because Lance isn't sure how much good that would really do. So he just stands steady and wraps his arms around Nick.

He wants to kill that kid, and he wants to kill Nick for the stupid things he does when he lets Aaron get to him. There's no question about Nick's love for his brother, but Aaron's a little shit a lot of the time, especially when he runs his mouth about his family - about his brother - in public. Lance hates what it does to Nick - what Nick lets it do to him. Aaron is too much his mother's child, and Lance suspects Nick should cut him loose, like his mother - even if Lance realizes that if Nick has been stuck somewhere at 12 and he, himself, has been stuck somewhere at 16, Aaron's stuck somewhere at about 6 and not even working at moving forward.

Pop stardom, Lance thinks. There's nothing like it to completely retard your emotional growth. Except maybe prison.

His own cynicism is making him tired, and it's not doing anything for Nick, who trembles slightly, a quick tremor running through him, although he's dry-eyed when he pulls away from Lance.

"Hey," he says, stopping to clear his throat after his voice cracks high. "Is that fresh coffee?"

"I suppose that means you want some?"

Lance turns to the cupboard for another mug and pours some of the coffee into it before refilling his own. Nick's shrugged off his jacket in a pile of worn brown leather on top of his duffle, leaving them both in the kitchen doorway to search the refrigerator for milk with a "sell by" date in the future instead of the past. Lance goes over and gloms onto him from behind.

"Put that back," he says, smacking at Nick's hand.

"Ow! What?"

Nick turns wounded eyes to Lance, who has to stop himself from just dragging him out of the kitchen and tucking him into bed with some warm milk, or something.

"Here," he says, instead, ducking his head and slipping under the arm Nick's bracing against the side of the fridge.

He keeps his own arm slung around Nick's waist, working his fingers under layers of flannel and T-shirt and thermal knit to press the tips to the warm skin of Nick's side. He pulls out a small carton with his free hand, bumping into Nick's body as he turns, causing a brief tangle of limbs before they sort themselves out and get the refrigerator door closed.

"Whipping cream?" Nick reads the label out loud and looks puzzled. "In coffee? And since when do you drink anything in your coffee, anyway?"

"Just ... trust me."

Lance has learned that sometimes, you have to treat yourself. Sometimes ... sometimes it turns out pretty well.

He pours cream into the two mugs and passes one over, watches Nick's face light up as he tastes. Hitching himself up to sit on the counter, he studies Nick over the rim of his own cup.

Nick's pale with circles under his eyes, puffy from stress and lack of sleep and too much take-out, mouth pinched thin the way it always looks when he's unhappy. He doesn't look much better than he did in those damned mug shots a few years back, and it worries Lance. Nick's emotional state is usually written all over him. He'd started to look tanned and healthy again, for a while there - and happy. No one knows better than Lance how tour rehearsal can take it out of you, but right in the middle of promo, set to hit the road, Nick should be in the best shape of his life, should be flashing that gorgeous wide grin that lights up his face and everything around him.

"We should go for a drive," Lance says, running his fingers through Nick's hair and pushing it back from his face to make it stand up spiky. "Rent a car. It's not like we can put the top down, but we could go out to the shore. Get you out in the sun while you still can, before you're sleepin' all day and playin' all night. Well, what sun there is, at least."

It's barely past 2 p.m., but the light coming in through the apartment windows is the cool filtered grey of an overcast New York winter, and Lance's bones ache with his own weariness as he drops his forehead to Nick's, winds his hands around Nick's neck. He thinks he'd give anything to feel the sun on his face, damp with Mississippi humidity, blazing with Orlando heat, even filtered red through L.A. smog - any kind of light against the raw, wet drafts of late February on the Eastern Seaboard. He's almost glad his run in the show is coming to an end in a few weeks, almost glad he'll be moving on to the next thing, even if he doesn't yet know what the next thing is.

Nick's hands tighten on his hips, and Lance forces himself to stay still as Nick pulls back, eyes searching Lance's face. He's got enough practice at holding still for inspection, right?

Ask me, he thinks. Just fuckin' ask me.

But Nick drops his gaze again, and Lance curses to himself and wants to kill every single other member of the Carter family. Nick won't ask, not because he's afraid Lance will say no, but because he's afraid Lance will say yes and then not come through. Lance makes a mental note to check the Boys' tour schedule, anyway, and maybe ask Kelly how often is enough to show up without looking too clingy. After all, what else is he going to have to do, in a month or so? He might as well show up at a few clubs and take in the competition's music - if they even count as competition anymore. They've put out yet another album, maybe they're just the winners.

Lance hasn't been in a situation like this, where he's the one sitting at home and waiting. He's not sure he likes it. He remembers that last fight with Jesse and wonders, how could you even stand me? Maybe he ought to call and apologize, maybe they've both moved on enough that he can do that. Tomorrow, though, he thinks. He's got things to take care of right now.

"C'mere," he says, even though Nick is right there, and sets his coffee down on the counter.

He runs his fingers over Nick's face, tracing over his closed eyelids, across his cheekbones, down the square length of his jaw, tipping forward to rest his forehead against Nick's again as he drags a thumb along Nick's bottom lip. Nick's breath is hot on Lance's face, rich scent of coffee and cream, and he catches his breath in something that sounds almost like a sob as Lance leans in to press soft kisses at the corner of his mouth, on the bow of his upper lip. Lance closes his own eyes, and he stills, lips barely touching Nick's. They stay there for a minute, sharing breath back and forth, before Nick leans in and bites at Lance's mouth, bringing a hand up to Lance's face, his fingers still warm from the coffee cup as he tilts his head to slick his tongue across Lance's lips.

Lance can feel Nick's jaw working under his own fingers, the way Nick's cheek hollows as he pushes his tongue into Lance's mouth. He can feel the flush of Nick's heating skin under his fingertips and the brush of Nick's eyelashes against his cheek. He wraps one leg around Nick's waist, an arm around Nick's neck; he can feel Nick's hand slide up to hook around his hip and pull him closer, Nick pressing deeper between his thighs, deeper into his mouth, like he wants to crawl inside. Nick pulls his mouth away with a gasp as Lance slides both arms around his neck, pulling himself closer, and he grinds his hips into Lance, one hand braced on the edge of the countertop now as he leans further in, mouth moving back along the point of Lance's jaw.

Ow, Lance thinks distantly as the back of his head hits the cabinet door behind him, but the thought's barely formed before Nick's yanking him even closer to the edge of the counter, and then Lance is pushing up along Nick's body, bracing himself with his elbows on Nick's shoulders to kiss him again, sharp and frantic, feeling the scrape of teeth behind the slick wet heat of Nick's tongue.

Stop, Lance tells himself. Stop.

He has to take a minute, gasping for breath, and he buries his face in the crook of Nick's neck. He can feel Nick nuzzling into his hair, mouth still moving against his ear, and he's pretty sure they're going to end up having sex in here again if they don't get to the bedroom, now. He's having a hard time worrying about it - he's preoccupied with the way Nick's palms feel sliding inside the loose waistband of his jeans to cup his hips and the way he can feel every ridge and callous of Nick's fingertips along his ribs as Nick trails one hand back up, under his shirt. He's more concerned with the solid wall of Nick's heat and breath and presence against him, and he wants this, feels like he's always wanted this, and God, he wants it even more now that he knows he can have it.

"Nick," he says. "The bedroom, Nick. Can we ..."

Nick actually makes it to the kitchen doorway with Lance's legs still around his waist, and then he trips over his duffle and jacket on the floor. Lance ends up with his back braced against the wall, one of Nick's arms holding him up, and he takes the opportunity to twist his fingers in Nick's shirts, yanking them over his head. Nick hooks a hand around Lance's neck, three layers of shirt trailing from his wrist, to pull him in for another kiss as they stumble down the hall toward the bedroom. Lance has his own shirt off and Nick's pants finally undone by the time they make it through the door; he barely takes the time to shuck his jeans before he's got his hands fisted in Nick's hair, Nick's bottom lip between his teeth. He scrabbles back on his elbows when Nick pushes him down on the bed, fetching up against the headboard, and leans back to stroke himself - one hand wrapped around his cock, the other fisted in a pillowcase - watching Nick crawl after him.

Nick grabs him and pulls him down, fitting their bodies together, before he leans in for another kiss, reaching blindly for the drawer where they keep the lube and condoms. He twists a finger into Lance hard and fast, and Lance arches up on the bed, digging in his heels and pulling in a deep shuddery breath.

"Fuck, wait, don't _stop_," he grits out, banging a fist in the sheets when Nick pulls his finger out.

Nick just leans down to drop a kiss on Lance's thigh before slicking more lube on his hand, and then he's back, two fingers this time, twisting Lance open, laying him out in a series of gasping moans.

He's reaching for the bottle of lube again when Lance grabs his wrist.

"No," Lance says. "Now. _Now_, Nick."

Nick's inside him in one long, smooth thrust, yanking Lance's hips up to push deep. He's hot and heavy between Lance's legs, and he leans down to lay a kiss on Lance's arched throat as he slides an arm underneath Lance to brace him. After that, it's hot and frantic and perfect, and Lance wishes he could freeze-frame it, because this is exactly what he wants, everything he wants, and the only problem is, he's only going to be able to have it in bits and pieces, now and then, between tours and appearances and publicity, waiting for Nick to come back.

He'll always come back, he remembers AJ saying, and he clenches his fingers hard around Nick's as he comes.

"What is it?" Nick says when they're both coming down, lips moving against the back of Lance's neck. "Are you OK?"

Lance just shakes his head and curls deeper into the warm cocoon of blankets they've managed to wrap around themselves, pressing his back against Nick's chest. He looks down at Nick's hand on his own chest and traces along Nick's leather wristband, runs a fingertip underneath to touch the soft skin on the inside of Nick's wrist and feel the flutter of his pulse.

"This isn't some kind of publicity stunt," Nick says, low. "Or ... or ... some kind of way to get more attention or ... whatever it was he said when they asked him on that radio show. It's _not_."

"I know that," Lance says.

"It's _not_," Nick repeats.

"Dude, I _know_," Lance says, twisting to face him, sliding fingers through silky hair to cup his hand around the back of Nick's neck and shake him a little bit. "I believe you, OK?"

Nick looks up at him through damp eyelashes.

"Swear to God," Lance says. "I totally and completely believe you. I know you wouldn't have the attention span to pull off a stunt for this long."

Nick barks a sharp laugh, and Lance takes the opportunity to shift a little bit closer, hooking one leg over Nick's. Nick strokes a hand almost absently along Lance's thigh as Lance leans in to him.

"There's something I have to tell you, though," Lance says, whispering in Nick's ear. "This past three and a half years? It's all been a big publicity stunt for me. I am actually completely, one hundred percent straight."

Nick's laughter sounds almost normal again.

 

•••

 

If Lance was back in L.A., he'd be able to open the windows, but he presses fingertips to the cold glass and knows that winter's still too close for that, here. He's restless, jittery under his skin, pacing the floors of an apartment that's grown too small. He should get out in the chilly spring air, maybe walk the dogs, but he'll need to start dinner soon, get something cooking before Michael gets here. Lance has promised to spend some time talking to him about what he can expect onstage as Billy, although really, it's not the same as when John took Lance under his wing. Lance isn't old enough to be Michael's dad, first of all. And how can Lance measure up to a former Duke of Hazzard, anyway?

He grins to himself a little bit as he turns away from the window, arms wrapped around his middle. Nick's blue hoodie catches his eye - abandoned at the foot of the bed, overlooked and left behind the last time Nick packed his things - and he slips it on, pulling the cuffs down over his hands and curling chilled fingers into them. The material used to smell like Nick's cologne, but that's faded over the past couple of weeks.

He wanders aimless through the apartment and thinks about calling JC. He's supposed to fly out to L.A. for an appearance at the end of the _Dancing_ tour next week. He needs to figure out what he's going to do from there. He's heard from LOGO, caught some interest in returning to the talks they had about him producing a show - nothing for the upcoming season, clearly, because it's way too close to spring upfronts to get anything ready. Maybe something for a mid-season show, Beth said, when she'd passed the message on to him. Once the summer's over, though, he thinks maybe he wants to be back onstage. His reviews haven't been that bad - certainly not as inconsistent as Usher's were in the role. Justin takes a lot of glee in calling Lance to point that out at least once a week. A couple of critics were even complimentary about what one called Lance's "ultra-smarmy" take on Billy. Maybe he's done a solid enough job that he can find something else, after this. He's never really liked dancing and probably never will, but he gets why Joey loves performing so much, needs it so much, like air - that was maybe the first thing that drew them together, the way they both wanted the performance fix, the high they got from it. Nick was right. He does miss it when he's not in the middle of it.

Foster raises her head and thumps her tail sleepily at him from the couch as he stands in the middle of the living room, hands jammed in the pockets of Nick's hoodie.

"Are you supposed to be up there?" he asks her. "I don't think you are."

She thumps her tail at him again, wiggling to the front of the cushion and tilting her head so he can scratch her chin.

"Come here, baby," he says, picking her up and pulling her on his lap as he flops down.

She rolls on her side obligingly, tucking herself into the crook of his arm and presenting her belly, and he gives in, digging his socked toes under the afghan and between the cushions to keep them warm as he scratches. There's something pointy down there, and he leans forward to fish out a book that's gotten lost. _The Art of Happiness_, by ... the Dalai Lama? Lance recognizes the cover - it's whatever Nick was reading the last time he was here. "I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness," the first line reads, and Lance closes it and sets it on the coffee table. He'll put it on the bookcase with the rest of the small collection of stuff he's actually read. It's been read. Nick read it. That counts.

Dingo gives an aggrieved huff where she's curled on a ratty blanket in the corner.

"Don't look at me," he tells her. "I miss him, too."

He keeps doing this, running across reminders of the way Nick's insinuated himself into his life. He can't go a half-dozen steps through his apartment without tripping over something, physically or emotionally. He caught himself using Nick's toothbrush two nights ago, the New York toothbrush, Nick called it when he bought it to leave here.

JC was right, too. Lance is no good at being by himself.

"This sucks," he tells Foster, and she wriggles up to lick his chin.

He doesn't feel like cooking. He squirms around until he can get at his cellphone in his pocket and flips it open, pages through the numbers he's got saved. He calls 44 &amp; X and manages to wheedle a reservation for a decent time that evening. Justin will whine and want to know why he didn't come by Destino, but Lance is in no mood for Italian food tonight. He's going to starve if he doesn't eat something before dinner, though, and he turns over the contents of the kitchen in his head before he pushes Foster off his lap, pulling the afghan over her as consolation when he gets up.

There's actually celery in the refrigerator - a different, newer batch, thank God - and carrots, too, although he leaves them in the crisper bin. There's no cream cheese, anyway. He can't help grinning as he pulls down the jar of peanut butter from the cupboard. He can't find the raisins, though. He paws through the cupboard twice more before accepting that there are no raisins.

"Fucker," he says out loud, and it sounds as aggrieved as Dingo's snort did. "You ate all my _raisins_?"

Well. Apparently the honeymoon's over.

He examines the celery and peanut butter sitting on the counter and only ends up putting them back. He's not really hungry anymore. Back in the bedroom, he flops on the bed and studies the ceiling for a couple minutes. Pulls his cellphone back out. Texts Joey.

I SUCK.

Two minutes later, his phone buzzes.

WIDOW'S WALK SUX :_(

Forty seconds later, it buzzes again. This one's from Kelly.

{{{L}}}. &lt; 3, K

"She knows what it's like to raise children with an absentee father," he tells Dingo, who's wandered into the bedroom.

She jumps up and curls next to Lance as he sits up in bed, burrowing his feet under the blanket at the foot. He pets her absently for a minute, staring at the guitar in the corner of the room, then flips open the phone and presses "3" on his speed dial.

"Hi," he says, after the beep. "I think you're probably onstage right now, but I was just lying here in bed, and I was thinking about you. Not like that ... well, maybe a little bit like that. I could tell you what I'm wearing if you want, but you have to call me back. Call me back. I ... " He hesitates for a minute. I'm ready for you guys to be back in the States, he thinks. "I miss you, babe. Call me, OK? Bye."

 

•••

 

Lance wakes to sunshine on his face and the smell of coffee and the warmth of a body pressed along his back.

"Hey," he says, rolling over and blinking at Maxie.

She thumps her tail gently on the mattress, and he scrubs his knuckles over her head, paying special attention to behind the ears. When he yawns and stretches - back arched, fingers to the headboard, muscles pulled tight, tight, before he relaxes - she jumps to her feet and stretches, too. When he laughs, she paws at him, ducking her head, still puppyish, and noses under his hand, and he sits up, yawning again and rubbing his other hand over his face.

"Where's Nick?" he asks her. "Do you think we can find him?"

He takes the chance to study the bedroom in daylight as he wanders around, pulling sweatpants out of his bag and stealing one of Nick's T-shirts from the dresser. There's not a lot in the way of furniture - the bed, the dresser, a single nightstand - but the guitar stand in one corner makes it feel familiar.

He follows Maxie and the scent of coffee downstairs to find Nick leaning on one of the kitchen counters with a mug of coffee, chin in hand, an unread newspaper in front of him.

"Hey," Lance says again, pressing himself along Nick's side and dropping a kiss behind his ear before stealing his coffee.

"Welcome to Tennessee," Nick says, tilting his head to nudge at Lance. "Breakfast?"

"Sure."

Lance lounges back on the counter, clutching his coffee - well, it's his coffee, _now_, and possession is nine-tenths of the law - and watches Nick hunting through the cupboards, muttering about Leslie and whole-grain bread and fried-egg sandwiches and something about his family and their high horse.

"Sourdough," he says to Lance at one point. "You'd think there'd at least be sourdough, if somebody can't buy, you know, plain white bread."

Lance nods and blinks and holds out his empty coffee cup.

"You're ridiculous, Bass," Nick says, coming over with the coffee pot.

"That's not what you said last night," Lance says and smirks at Nick over the rim of the mug.

"That's because my mouth was full - something you oughta' be grateful for," Nick says, pointing the spatula at him.

"You're right, I am very, very grateful," Lance says as Nick cracks eggs into a frying pan. "In fact, I would probably be even more grateful if you would do it again."

"Well, not _now_," Nick says. "Now, I'd burn the eggs."

Lance abandons his coffee mug and comes over to inspect the proceedings, reaching out to poke at the frying pan's handle.

"Quit it," Nick says, smacking at him with the spatula. "You'll break the yolks."

"What does it matter? They'll end up hard, anyway."

"What are you talking about?"

"You're not going to leave those runny, right?" Lance opens the refrigerator door to inspect the contents. "Hey. You've got orange juice."

"Of course I'm going to leave them runny." Nick stares at him before setting down the spatula and turning to pull a couple of glasses from one of the cabinets. "They have to be runny to soak into the toast."

"You can't make fried-egg sandwiches with runny yolks," Lance insists, sniffing at the orange juice before he pours. "Do you know what kind of mess that's gonna make?"

"Who's making these eggs?"

"All I'm sayin' is, I don't want any snotty eggs," Lance says, as he sticks the orange juice back in the refrigerator.

"Hey, while you're in there, hand me the strawberry jam."

Nick painstakingly flips the eggs, a process that involves a few weird contortions, facial and otherwise, before he puts two slices of bread in the toaster. Lance is waiting when he turns back around.

"Hey," he says again, pushing his fingers back through Nick's hair.

"Hi, baby," Nick says with one of those blinding grins.

Lance steals a sunny sweet orange-flavored kiss, snaking his arms around Nick's waist and tilting his face into the palm of Nick's hand, opening his mouth to Nick's tongue as Nick strokes a thumb along his jaw and presses him back against the counter. Nick lowers both hands to the countertop to hem Lance in as he breaks the kiss, angling back in to nudge at Lance's mouth with his own, pulling away once, twice, three times as Lance leans forward to meet him. Lance makes an impatient sound, a low rumble of frustration, and tries to raise his hands to hold Nick's face, but Nick catches his wrists in both hands and presses his palms back to the counter.

"Tease," Lance says against Nick's mouth, lips barely brushing, and darts in, sudden, trying to catch Nick's lower lip.

"So easy," Nick says and grins, dropping his head to mouth along Lance's jaw and down his neck.

Lance draws in a breath and rocks up his hips, pressing into answering hardness and pulling a whimper out of Nick.

"So easy," Lance says, turning his head to whisper in Nick's ear.

"Whoa! Hel_lo_ there."

Nick's back goes ramrod straight at the sound of an intruding female voice, but he doesn't turn around, and he doesn't let go of Lance's wrists. Lance has to tilt his head and peer around Nick's arm to spot the blonde who's suddenly standing in the middle of the kitchen.

"Hi, Leslie," Nick says. "What are you doing down here? Don't you usually sleep later than this?"

"Hi," she says, craning her head to see past Nick's shoulder and waving at Lance, who grins at her.

"Hi," he says.

"Don't encourage her," Nick tells him. "She's only going to ask you to sign the NSYNC poster she has hidden in the back of her closet."

"You're just mad 'cause I bought all their albums," Leslie says.

"Leslie, can I help you with something?" Nick asks with forced patience, and Lance drops his head into Nick's shoulder to smother a laugh.

"No, I just wanted to let you know I'm out for the day."

"Wait, did you have studio time, today?"

"Just rehearsal, seriously, take a day off, boss. You look like you've got your hands full, there."

Lance gives his hips a tiny nudge into Nick's in response to that, and Nick hisses in air through his teeth. Leslie snorts with laughter.

"Leslie?" Nick says, teeth still gritted.

"Yeah, boss?"

"Get out."

"Ten-four. You might want to check on those eggs though."

"Shit."

Leslie gives a jaunty wave to Lance, who's left leaning against the counter as Nick yanks the frying pan off the stove.

Fortunately there's still toast, and Lance foregoes the dining room table to collapse cross-legged on the windowsill of the big bay window that looks out on the road and the front lawn, turning his face up to the sunshine streaming in.

"So what do you think of the place?" Nick asks, sitting on the edge of the sill facing him and handing over a piece of toast with strawberry jam.

"It's really great - nice and normal and ... _normal_." Lance is kind of surprised by that, actually. "But still nice. Bigger than it looks outside."

"It's only Leslie staying here full-time right now, but I wanted the five bedrooms so that everyone would have their own room if they ever needed somewhere to go," Nick says, looking down and picking at a hole in the knee of his jeans.

"That was a great idea," Lance says, completely unsurprised that Nick would think of something like that for his brother and sisters.

"So, how long are you gonna be in town?"

"Three days, if you'll have me," Lance licks jam off his fingers. "Then I have to fly out to California. I'm keeping the New York apartment this time, but if this LOGO thing comes through, I've got to find something in L.A., since the house is being rented out through the end of the year."

"Lance ... you know you might not have your own room - one to yourself, I mean - but you know that there's always a room here for you, too, right?" Nick gives one quick glance up at Lance through his lashes before looking back down at the frayed threads he's rolling between his fingers. "So, you know, you don't have to worry about this whole 'however long I'll have you' thing."

"Nick ..." Lance is a little bit dumbfounded.

"I mean, if you want," Nick says, looking out the window.

"Nick ... I ..." Lance reaches out and traces over the arch and dip of Nick's knuckles, the same kind of light touch he's felt so many times on the back of his own hand. "Yeah. Yeah, I want."

He tucks his fingers into Nick's palm, and Nick squeezes them. Sunshine slants across his face when he looks up at Lance and grins, and Lance feeds him the last bit of toast and jam, before leaning forward to kiss him.

"Nice hair, baby," Nick says when they break apart, running his fingers back through Lance's bedhead.

"Some guy last night couldn't keep his hands out of it," Lance says.

"You have to watch out for guys like that."

"People keep telling me that."

 

_-fin-_


End file.
